Monday 6 January 2014

Party Rings

Hello and welcome to 2014 on Teen Baker! I feel it’s appropriate to start the year with something healthy, like a colourful salad, as so many people go on a New Years diet. Or something that uses up the Christmas and New Years party leftover bits and bobs that are currently cluttering up people’s cupboards everywhere. But… well… all in good time. Party rings are just so much more fun!photo 1Party rings have been on my baking agenda since I started doing the homemade classics challenge but for one reason or another they kept falling to the bottom of the list. I don’t know if party rings are available outside the UK but (as the name suggests) they are a kids birthday party staple here with their pastel colours and pretty swirly pattern. Essentially they are just a vanilla ring biscuit with glace icing topping, but there is something addictive about them!photo 1 (1)I thought party rings would be a bit of a kerfuffle to make and certainly previous recipes I’d seen for them had been more fiddly, involving piping, icing borders, intricate patterns and other things I’m not very good at. However when I saw this recipe from the Oh Comely magazine blog I knew it wouldn’t be long until party rings graced my kitchen counter! Turns out party rings are super easy – dipping each biscuit in bowls of icing creates the base layer, and a quick drizzle of icing off the end of a teaspoon creates the signature swirly pattern. My tips would be to make your icing a bolder colour than you think – the beauty of party rings is their pretty pastels but you need them to show up and not look watery on the biscuit. Also after doing all the base layers, thicken your icing slightly for the drizzle – I thought thinner would be easier to drizzle but thicker icing holds the pattern better. See you next week for that healthy new years dish…or maybe some more baking. We’ll see!

8 comments:

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

Pretty and festive.

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2014!

Cheers,

Rosa

The Caked Crusader said...

Happy new year!

They look great; always a favourite of mine!

Anonymous said...

Happy New Year! It's good to see you get back to your baking challenge, which I always enjoy reading, but I also look forward to your next term's activities. Are you ready for action?

Jo said...

Happy New Year! I love your party rings! Along with custard creams they rank highly on my favourite biscuit list.

Maggie said...

Happy New Year!
I was brought up eating party rings and could never get enough of them - so nice to see them again.

Emily said...

Mmm these look brill!

anna @ annamayeveryday said...

These look great! My children call them Lola biscuits as in Charlie and Lola children's books/programme. We will definitely make these!

Unknown said...

these are super cute! im just starting a baking blog and i was wondering if you could give some pointers! your blog is so cute and everything looks really good.

http://the-book-of-sweets.blogspot.com/