Preparation time : 90m minutes + 15 minutes cooking time
Ingredients:makes c. 1100 g biscuits
Short-crust pastry:
600 g flour
200 g icing sugar
300 g cold butter (cut into cubes)
2 eggs
4 drops vanilla flavouring
Filling:
Chocolate spread
Decoration:
icing sugar
chopped hazelnuts
Icing:
210 g icing sugar
15 g egg white
15 g filtered lemon juice
Red and yellow food coloring
Method
Pastry: sieve the flour and icing sugar into a bowl and mix. Add the cold butter and briefly mix using your fingertips, then add the eggs and flavoring. Mix well without letting the pastry get too warm. Wrap in cling-film and place in the fridge for 30 minutes. Remove from the fridge and roll out until about 4mm thick. Cut the pastry using the biscuit cutter and then cut the base of the figures with a knife. Collect the off-cuts, form into a ball, and roll out again to cut more biscuits until all the pastry is used up. Transfer the biscuits to a baking tray covered with a sheet of greaseproof paper and use a spatula to detach the center figure of a third of the biscuits and place these on the tray, leaving the whole of the other. Place in a pre-heated oven at 180° for 14/15 minutes. Remove from the oven, turn out of the mold and allow to cool on a rack. Sandwich together with the whole biscuits (base) and the figures/silhouettes (top) using the chocolate spread.
Decoration: roll the edges of some of the biscuits in the hazelnuts; sprinkle some with icing sugar (use a brush to remove any icing sugar on the details in relief).
Icing: add the lemon juice and egg white to the sieved icing sugar. Whisk until stiff. Transfer one-third of the icing to another bowl and add the red food coloring. Repeat, this time using the yellow coloring. Place most of the icing into three separate paper cones or icing bags and then outline the biscuits with the icing as shown in the photo. Allow drying.
