Sugar and Crumbs flavoured icing have been steadily multiplying in my baking cupboard since trying some on a whim a couple of years back. I've also whipped up several batches of my favourite sugar cookies recently and have been feeling the urge to make more biscuits. So I thought I'd try something fun.

I usually use Sugar and Crumbs Icing sugar in buttercream, it is icing sugar after all. But my favourite sugar cookie recipe uses icing sugar not granulated/caster so I thought - hey why not flavour the biscuits with Sugar & Crumbs and see what happens.

That began a week of experimenting and messing about, the result of which was me having to eat a lot of biscuits or sugar cookies. It is a hard life, but I don't mind taking that sugar-bullet for you dear readers - HA!

Now, I'm a salted caramel addict so I get through bags of that particular flavour so I was determined to try a flavour I hadn't used yet. And then it struck me...Jaffa Cakes! One of the world's greatest biscuit-ish things! I wouldn't be making the jelly, but what if the biscuits or sugar cookie were orangey and chocolatey? Maybe with chocolate on top too?

Oooh, I was excited about this. As was my hubby who was disappointed (and a little grouchy) that I wasn't going to make them straight away.

Sugar and Crumbs Jaffa Sugar Cookies Recipe

227g Unsalted Butter, softened
192g Sugar & Crumbs Jaffa Twist Chocolate Icing Sugar
1 Medium Egg
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
320g to 365g All-Purpose (Plain) Flour
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Salt

• Get 3 bowls, one large, one medium one small.
• Cream together the Sugar and Crumbs Icing Sugar and Butter in the large bowl. I use my stand mixer and the metal paddle attachment.
• Crack your egg into the small bowl and add in your flavouring. You probably don't need it for this recipe, I kept it to maintain the wet ingredient to dry ingredient ratio.
• Add in the egg mixture and beat until combined.
• Weigh out your flour, baking powder and salt in the medium bowl and sift it gradually into the large bowl while mixing slowly (so it doesn't spray everywhere).
• You may not need all of the flour or you may need a little more. You'll know the dough is ready when it doesn't stick to your fingers when you touch it.

I decided to make 2 batches, one with the Jaffa Twist, and a plain vanilla one which I coloured orange. I thought I could play with the design a little and have some fun with how the biscuit / sugar cookie itself looked. I really wanted the flavour to be the star here, so I wasn't planning on any additional decoration.

Vanilla Sugar Cookies Recipe

227g Unsalted Butter, softened
192g  Icing Sugar
1 Medium Egg
2 tsp Vanilla Essence
4 drops of  Americolor Orange
320g to 365g All-Purpose (Plain) Flour
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Salt

I actually ended up using less flour in the Orange coloured batch than the Chocolate Jaffa batch and it really showed. You'll see what I mean in further on.

Then came the fun part! I have been wanting to try sugar cookies with an internal pattern for a while and this seemed like a great opportunity.

After leaving the dough to rest (you don't actually have to chill this dough, but I usually do) I rolled out half of both batches to about 1/4 cm thickness and popped the Orange on top of the Jaffa.

After trimming it up a little so that the dough was an even shape, I used my silicone mat to help me roll up the layered dough, like a Swiss Roll.

Then I cut up my cookie dough roll into even slices.

Isn't it pretty!!!

I just did the slices by eye, so they weren't exact but you could always measure, mark and cut to get perfect biscuits.

Now, the Orange layer was a little thicker, but also softer, and spread out a little when baked.

You'll also notice that some of the layers here aren't completely bonded together. That was probably due to excess dusting flour on my board. You can see some around the outside of the biscuits. Don't worry though, this won't split during baking, in fact, once they are heated they will bond nicely.

I got roughly 30 spiral cookies out of this method, but that obviously depends on how big you roll them. If you want them deeper just cut thicker slices. If you want wider cookies you'll have to roll more layers.

Bake!

Next, I baked (and ate them). I put them in a pre-heated oven at 200℃ for about 8 minutes. I accidentally did a batch at 180℃ and not only did they take 12 mins to bake, but they spread out a lot more. This was particularly noticeable for the Orange layers, because they were softer, due to having less flour in them.

Now, when I do these again, I will roll a thicker layer of the Chocolate Jaffer layer and have the Orange be a subtle swirl rather than the other way around. This way the Jaffa flavour will be stronger, which is what I was going for in the first place.

I have to say they tasted wonderful anyway, I just would have liked more Chocolate Jaffa per mouthful. You can also see that the Sugar and Crumbs layer held it's size/shape a lot better.

The photo makes the orange layer look less striking than it actually was, it was quite a vibrant colour.

Play With Design

If you have been paying attention, you will know I have a lot of dough left over. So here are some of the other designs I played around with.

Here are a couple of Chocolate Jaffa Hearts, with some purple Royal Icing, drizzled over the top.

What time of year do you think of when you hear 'Chocolate Orange' or orange flavoured anything? Well Snowflakes made the most sense to me.

Decorated with Dr Oetker silver spray, brushed silver lustre dust and brushed Rolkem Super Gold.

Circle biscuits with Orange centres.

This was definitely a better ratio of Jaffa flavour to vanilla.

And who could resist making a 'Jaffa Cake'!

I cut and baked a small orange circle like above. I glued it with chocolate onto a big Chocolate Jaffa circle biscuit. Then I decorated with chocolate in the traditional Jaffa Cake style. It was cute. A completely different texture and flavour of course, but tasty all the same.

Which was your favourite design?

What have you used Sugar and Crumbs for? What is your favourite flavour? I'd love to hear from you in the comments section.