Gluten-free cranberry and white chocolate star biscuits

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This fantastic gluten-free biscuit recipe from Howard Middleton makes gorgeous flavour-packed snacks for any time of year, full of cranberries and finished off with white chocolate and colourful freeze-dried cranberry powder.

First published in 2015

Tangy cranberries and sweet, creamy white chocolate are the stars of these gluten-free biscuits, and potato flour gives them extra crunch.

Chewy dried cranberries are available in most supermarkets and health food shops but it’s worth an online forage for the freeze-dried variety and the fabulously florid cranberry powder. This fuchsia dust looks like primary school powder paint – it’s guaranteed to bring out the big kid as you play around with a little artful dunking.

For added flavour, I like experimenting with a few drops from the growing range of pure extracts, but feel free to play safe if your taste is more vanilla.

Of course, you can make these biscuits in any shape you choose, but you’ll then have to think of something else to call them.

Ingredients

Metric

Imperial

  • 230g of rice flour, plus extra for rolling
  • 120g of potato flour
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 1 tsp xanthan gum
  • 110g of unsalted butter, cut into cubes and chilled
  • 150g of caster sugar
  • 3 tbsp of dried cranberries
  • 3 tbsp of freeze-dried cranberries
  • 1 large egg, beaten
  • 4 tbsp of honey, (or use 2 tbsp honey and 2 tbsp syrup from a jar of stem ginger)
  • vanilla, star anise or bergamot extract (a few drops), or replace with a little orange zest if you prefer

To decorate

Equipment

  • 10cm pastry cutter

Method

1
To begin, put the flours, bicarbonate of soda and xanthan gum in a large mixing bowl and rub through the butter until there are no lumps visible. Stir in the sugar and cranberries
2
Mix the egg with the honey and vanilla extract and add this to the bowl, stirring with a knife then kneading it together by hand to form a ball. If you have time, wrap in cling film and chill for about 30 minutes to firm up
3
Preheat the oven to 190°C/gas mark 5 and line your baking sheets with baking parchment
4
On a floured surface, roll out the dough to about 6mm thick and stamp out stars up to 10cm in diameter. Transfer to the baking sheet and bake for about 12–15 minutes until golden brown (the biscuits will firm up a little more on cooling)
5
When the biscuits are cold, drizzle with melted chocolate (you can mask off some of the biscuit with a palette knife or strip of foil) and dunk the edge into a little freeze-dried cranberry powder
First published in 2015

Howard is a food writer and presenter from Sheffield, who first caught the public’s attention on series four of The Great British Bake Off, going on to win their affection with his quirky style and love of unusual ingredients.

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