These homemade afternoon tea treats will be instant winners in your home! Not only do they require a nice, easy handful of ingredients, these delicious biscuits are bound to be a family favourite for a while as they taste delicious.

You can serve these up for an afternoon tea snack or, if you’ve got something special coming up or want to treat someone, you can wrap them up and give them to someone as the ultimate homemade gift! Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 225g unsalted butter softened
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 tbs golden syrup
• 2 tbs white vinegar
• 1 egg lightly beaten
• 2 1/2 cups plain flour
• 2 tbs cocoa
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  Vanilla Buttercream
• 125 g salted butter softened
• 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 3 cups pure icing sugar sifted
• 2 tbs milk warmed

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160C. Grease 2 large baking trays and line with baking paper. Using an electric mixer with whisk attachment to beat butter, sugar, golden syrup and vinegar until pale and creamy. Add egg and beat until combined. Sift flour, cocoa and bicarb soda over butter mixture.
2. Sift in dry ingredients and fold until combined and mixture forms a firm dough.
3. Working in batches, roll teaspoons of dough into balls. Place 4cm apart on prepared trays and use a lightly floured fork to flatten slightly.
4. Bake for 10–15 minutes or until biscuits are crisp and begin to darken. Transfer to wire racks to cool.
5. For the vanilla butter cream, use an electric mixer to beat butter until very pale and fluffy. Add vanilla bean paste and beat until combined. With mixer on a low speed, gradually add icing sugar and beat until combined. If mixture becomes too stiff, gradually add warm milk, a little at a time, beating until creamy.
6. Spoon buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a round nozzle. Pipe icing onto half of biscuits and sandwich together with remaining biscuits of a similar size.