An Edible Solar System

Here’s one we made earlier… but if you missed it here is your chance to get all space age in the kitchen. What could be nicer now it is getting wintry than a hot chocolate and a solar system biscuit!

You will need:

• 175g plain flour
• 100g butter or margarine
• 50g caster sugar
• Four different sized biscuit cutters
• Items to decorate – coloured icing, hundreds and thousands and liquorice

What to do:

• Pre-heat the oven to 150°C/300°F Gas 2 (get an adult to do this!)
• Cream the butter or margarine and caster sugar together until they are light and fluffy.
• Stir in the flour and, once mixed, knead the dough together until it forms a ball.
• Add a sprinkle of flour if the dough is sticky.
• Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it is about 5mm thick.
• Use the smallest biscuit cutter to cut three biscuits from the dough (Pluto, Mercury and Mars).
• Use the next-size-up biscuit cutter to make two biscuits (Venus and Earth).
• Use the next larger biscuit cutter to make another two biscuits (Neptune and Uranus).
• Use the largest biscuit cutter to cut the last two biscuits (Saturn and Jupiter).
• Place the biscuits on a baking tray and bake in the centre of the oven for 25 minutes or until golden brown.
• Let the biscuits cool before decorating.
• Keep track of the planets as you cut them out so you can decorate them correctly after they are cooked.

Now for the decoration:

• Mercury has a rocky surface and is orange-red in colour, so use coloured icing and hundreds and thousands to decorate this biscuit.
• Venus is covered with thick, yellow clouds so you will need yellow icing.
• Earth is an obvious one! Decorate with green and blue icing and a sprinkle of icing sugar to resemble the clouds.
• Decorate your Mars biscuit with red icing.
• Jupiter is a giant ball of yellow, orange and red gas arranged in stripes.
• Use stripes of coloured icing decorate with a red sweet in the middle to resemble Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.
• Saturn looks yellow because of its foggy atmosphere and is famous for its rings, so use yellow icing and lay a few pieces of liquorice on the biscuit to resemble its rings.
• Uranus looks green so decorate with green icing.
• Neptune is blue with faint stripes so decorate with blue icing and make faint stripes with sprinkles of icing sugar.
• Finally for Pluto, sprinkle a little icing sugar on the top of the biscuit to resemble this icy, rocky planet.

Now all you have to do is arrange the biscuits in the correct planetary order, and serve!