How To Make The Perfect Biscuits With Bake Off's Frances Quinn

It’s back! It’s officially Bake Off time as our favourite TV show returns on September 21^st. With a tent full of new hopeful bakers ready to wow us with their creations, we’re ready to sit on our sofas and get hungry. Always inspiring us to head to the kitchen and dig out our mixing bowls, there’s no better time to start baking than right now, getting involved in biscuit, bread, cake weeks and beyond.

Ready to give you her best tips, we caught up with the 2013 winner Frances Quinn. A baker and designer, Frances has gone on to collaborate with some big names and businesses including Vogue and Tate as well as releasing recipe books. Storming the win with her Midsummer Nights Dream themed wedding cake, she’s all about merging classic favourites with unique flavours.

Helping you get back to it, Frances shared her top tips for creating the perfect biscuits so you can be a star baker…

"As with all baking, it’s important to measure ingredients accurately and follow baking times with care. But when it comes to decorating and adorning your biscuits, anything goes! Desiccated coconut makes great textured fur on animal biscuits, while melted chocolate applied like glue is a tasty way to stick nuts through to chocolate buttons on biscuits to create designs like my shortbread owls."

"As well as traditional biscuit cutters, I encourage you to use everyday items for creating your bakes. Even the lid of the cocktail stick container can be put to good use to cut out hexagonal shaped biscuits, while wooden latte sticks are great tools to indent designs and markings into your dough before baking."

"I also recommend that you invest in some essential equipment and tools to make your baking easier and help ensure successful results. I couldn’t be without my large, solid, non-stick baking trays and recommend using non-stick, baking parchment paper to line trays."

"When baking biscuits, sheets of parchment can be turned over and re-used – sometimes more than once. Rolling out your biscuit dough on to non-stick parchment paper means that once you’ve cut out your shapes and rolled back your trimmings you can simply move the paper and straight on to a flat baking tray, saving you having to move and risk misforming your dough. Chilling your dough once cut and laid out on the trays, half an hour before baking can also help the biscuits retain their shape in the oven. Just make sure you’ve got shape in your fridge first!"

"Any extra dough and trimmings can be stored and kept in the fridge and freezer for future baking escapades, while any biscuits that break can be made into tiffin, crunchy crumble tops or cheesecake bases. Nothing need be wasted, neither crumb nor creativity."