We made these Thomas the Tank Engine biscuits for Crackers’ 4th birthday recently and they were a huge hit so we thought we’d share them with you. We made them using a gingerbread recipe but you could use whatever biscuit recipe you like.

What you will need:

For the biscuits
(makes approx. 20 biscuits)

•  125g unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2/3 cup golden syrup
• 2 1/2 cups plain flour, sifted
• 4tsp ground ginger
• 1tsp bicarb soda
• electric mixer
• baking paper
• rolling pin
• circle cookie mould
• baking tray

For the base icing*

• 1 cup icing sugar, sifted
• 1 egg white
• small drop of black food dye

*You will need to make another batch of this icing (with blue food dye instead of black) for the piping around the edges. You’ll need to wait until the base dries before you do this though. You will also need a piping bag for this part.

For the faces

• White fondant (we used the ready-to-roll stuff from the supermarket)
• A black edible food marker pen (you can buy these from cake shops or online)
• A small circle cutter for the eyes (we used circle plunger cutters like these)
• A larger circle cutter for the mouths
• A sharp knife or fondant cutting tool

Method
1. Bake biscuits. Preheat oven to 190°C. Place butter and sugar in a bowl and beat with electric mixer for 10-12 mins or until light and creamy. Add the golden syrup, flour, ginger and bicarb soda and beat until smooth dough forms. Roll out the dough between sheets of baking paper to about 5mm thick. Use the circle cookie cutter to cut out your biscuits. Line your baking tray with baking paper and bake them for 8-10 mins or until golden. (Tip: Try to cut the dough directly onto the baking try to avoid having to move them and losing their shape.)

2. Once the biscuits are cooked, roll out your white fondant (to about 1mm thick) and cut out small white circles for the eyes (using the plunger cutter if you have one). To make the mouths, use a bigger circle cutter and then cut the middle out to make two ‘half moon’ shapes (i.e. each circle should give you two ‘mouths’ once you cut out the middle).

3. Once the biscuits have fully cooled, make up your base icing. To do this, mix icing sugar into the egg white and add very small amounts of black dye (a toothpick is useful for this) until you have the right shade of grey. Spread the icing almost to the edges.

4. Before the icing has a chance to dry, place the fondant eyes and mouths on the biscuits.

5. Leave the icing to dry overnight.

6. Using the edible food marker, draw the noses, cheeks and eyebrows on the base icing and little ‘Pacman’ shapes (80s computer game reference – Google it if you’re under 30) on the eyes.

7. Once the edible marker ink is dry enough not to smudge, make up another batch of the base icing, this time using blue food dye instead of black. Place this in a piping bag and pipe it around the edges. If you’re clever with piping, you could make ‘scalloped’ edges on your biscuits but we went for the slightly more ‘rustic’ (i.e. wobbly) approach!

COMING SOON! Check back in later in the week for our post on Crackers’ birthday cake – a mountain with a tunnel and a battery-operated train going through it!