Over the weekend I had another family gathering to continue celebrating Christmas, so I thought I’d bake something! It’s always tricky for my mum catering for our family, particularly as I’m low FODMAP, my brother is a vegan and his girlfriend is gluten and dairy free… So I thought I’d make something gluten and dairy free, which is also vegan too!
I took inspiration from my Jammy Dodger recipe, as these are df, gf and vegan as well! I just tweaked it to reduce the number of biscuits, and iced them to look my childhood favourites. Unlike the McVitite’s party rings, these are gluten free and do not contain any palm oil. I didn’t actually realise normal party rings were vegan, which surprised me! But I’m pleased to have come up with a recipe free from palm oil as I’m pretty passionate about it’s use, particularly when it’s not RSPO certified. I recently wrote a post about palm oil and its use in gluten free products if you’re interested in reading more about this.
Party Rings
Ingredients
For the biscuits:
- 150 g Butter (dairy free – I use stork baking blocks)
- 80 g Icing sugar
- 200 g Gluten free plain flour
For the icing:
- 300 g Icing sugar (approximately)
- Water
- Food colouring (I used Dr Oetker gels)
Instructions
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Beat together the butter and icing sugar using a wooden spoon or electric mixer.
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Add the plain flour and mix until it forms a dough.
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Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge for 15-30 minutes.
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Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4 or 180 degrees and line two baking sheets with baking paper.
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On a floured surface, roll out the biscuit dough and use a smooth circular cutter to cut out your biscuit shapes. In every other circle, I cut out a heart using a small cutter (for the tops).
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Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until all of the biscuits are starting to look golden.
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Place the biscuits onto a wire rack to cool.
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Make up a large bowl of icing by gradually adding water to the icing sugar. The icing needs to have a thick consistency to ensure it covers the biscuit.
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Separate the icing into smaller bowls and mix a selection of colours. For authentic party rings you will need yellow, blue, pink and white. To make the purple, I mixed together the leftover blue and pink icing.
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Dip each biscuit into the coloured icing, and set aside. As the icing just begins to dry, drizzle straight lines of another colour (for example, dip into pink, then add lines of yellow icing). Feather these using a cocktail stick or cake tester and leave to set on a wire rack.
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Repeat this with the different colours until all of the biscuits are iced. Leave to set (an hour or so) then serve and enjoy!
While these biscuits are slightly fiddly to make – I can be a bit of perfectionist, and after spending 10 minutes on the first biscuit alone, I thought I’d be there until the new year – they are a real showstopper. My cousins (aged 12 & 15) said they tasted just like the normal party rings, and they were all finished off that afternoon!
I hope you enjoy making (and of course – eating!) these biscuits, take a photo of the finished product, I love to see how your bakes turn out.
Happy baking – and mainly decorating! Oh and a very Happy New Year to you all. I hope you all have an enjoyable evening of celebrating, eating, sleeping – however it is that you like to spend the additional bank holiday. This year I’m making a couple of veggie curries for a cosy buffet, before a few gins and some board games. Love a bit of Trivial Pursuit.
Alice x
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