Baking for Beginners: Lemon and Basil Biscuits

Just next to my mint plant sits a basil plant. He's a rather useful fella providing delicious fresh flavours to our frequent pasta outings at dinner time (yeah, I totally just personified my plant). Again, I was wondering what other dishes I could basil in. I wanted to switch it up a little and use basil in a sweet. After hours of trawling through recipes for inspiration I came up with these lemon and basil biscuits. They are your usual sweet biscuits with a shortbread texture and a lovely fresh basil kick.

Lemon and Basil Biscuits (makes 12)

You will need:

• 100g butter
• 60g sugar
• 100g plain flour
• zest of lemon
• 1-2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1tbsp chopped fresh basil

Make it!

• Get the oven preheated to 180C.
• Cream together the butter and sugar. You can do this in a mixer but I like to get stuck in with my hands. Makes the biscuits taste better I think.
• Add the flour and knead into a ball.
• Knead in the lemon zest and basil. Make sure the bits are well mixed into the dough.
• Finally add a touch of lemon juice, between 1 and 2 tbsp.
• On a lightly floured board roll the dough into a sausage shape roughly 1.5inchs thick. Then slice the sausage into 1 inch pieces. Give them a slight squish and place on a baking sheet covered in baking paper.
• Pop in the oven for about 10-15 minutes depending on the strength of your oven.
• Once golden remove from oven and allow to cool.