How to Make Kilt Shortbread Biscuits

This recipe makes around 16 biscuits.

* 125g Unsalted Butter (at room temperature)

* 50g Caster Sugar

* 200g Plain Flour (plus extra for dusting)

* Renshaw Royal Icing 400g

* Food Colouring (we've used Yellow, Red, Black and Blue)

* Renshaw Roll Out Icing - Atlantic Blue, Poppy Red, Lincoln Green, Yellow and Jet Black

* Edible Glue

* Silver Edible Paint

* Piping Bags

* Writing Piping Tips (various sizes)

* Scriber Needle Tool

* Greaseproof Paper

* Rolling Pin

* Knife/Pizza Wheel

* Baking Trays

* Cooling Rack

* Food-Safe Paintbrush

Download the free template here

Put the sugar and butter in a mixer or food processor and combine together. Add in the flour and mix/blitz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs that clump together when pressed between your fingers.

Gently bring the mixture together with your hands and knead lightly until you have a smooth ball of dough.

Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for 20-30 minutes.

Download and print the template above. Then cut out the templates.

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/400°F and line two baking trays with greaseproof paper. Roll out the chilled dough on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of a pound coin.

Use a pizza wheel or sharp knife to cut out the shapes and put them onto the prepared baking trays, re-rolling the leftovers until all of the dough has been used up.

Put the trays back into the fridge once more for 10 minutes for the shapes to firm up again.

Bake the biscuits for 10-12 minutes or until just starting to take on a pale golden colour.

Remove the trays from the oven and leave the biscuits to cool for a few minutes before transferring them onto a cooling rack.

Tip: If your biscuits have bubbled up slightly on the surface, use a cake smoother to lightly flatten the surface of the biscuits as soon as they come out of the oven. 

Roll out the coloured fondant icing (approximately 3mm thick) and cut around the templates to make enough shapes to cover the kilt and flag biscuits. For the flag biscuits we've used 'Atlantic Blue' roll out icing.

Apply a thin layer of edible glue to the underside of the icing shapes and attach these to the biscuits.

Decant half of the pot of royal icing into a mixing bowl and beat the icing with a few drops of water until bright white and the consistency is smooth, stiff and pipeable.

Divide the icing between five bowls and colour four – black, red, yellow and blue (or whichever colours you like), leaving one bowl white.

Take five piping bags and fit them with different sizes of writing piping nozzles. Use one colour at a time to pipe grids and checks on the kilts.

Tip: Start with the thickest nozzle to pipe the first colour and end with the thinnest nozzle. Experiment with lots of different colour combinations!

Use the white icing to pipe buckles on the belts.

Cut out the cross from the flag template and use a scriber needle tool to score around it onto the icing of the flag biscuits. This creates a guideline to pipe over.

Use the white royal icing and a fine nozzle to pipe over this outline.

Fill in the outline with more white royal icing that is a slightly runnier consistency – add a few drops of water to the white icing to achieve this flood consistency.

Use the scriber needle to take the icing right up to the piped outline.

Use any remaining flood-consistency white royal icing to pipe a few round or oval shapes onto a piece of greaseproof paper for the sporrans.

Leave these to set and then use a stiffer consistency white icing to pipe on any details. Leave the sporrans to set and harden before painting them with silver edible paint.

Paint the belt buckles silver too.

When the sporrans can be peeled off the greaseproof paper, attach them to the kilts with a small dot of icing.

Finally, pipe on the chain with small dots of icing and paint them silver when hardened.