Smart cars travel in convoys…

Like most little boys, Lucas loves cars.  But unlike most, he’s quite specific on the subject.  It has to be Smart cars.  There aren’t strong enough words to express how much Lucas loves Smart cars.

His obsession has been happily fostered by his Uncle Tony who is what I can only describe as a Smart SuperFan.  ‘Uncle Tony Smart Car’ has owned every model of Smart car since they started selling them in the UK, with the sole exception of the Crossblade.  A car without a roof or doors in England?  Madness.  He’d totally buy one, though, if they weren’t continually rising in price.

After Tony made Lucas a Smart car shaped lemon jelly a couple of weeks ago, I started to think about how random the Smart merchandise is.  We’ve even got a weird woven bamboo picnic mat (at least we think its a mat) for very narrow and very long picnics.  The picnic beaker is very cute, though; Lucas is looking forward to using it as his first big boy cup.

Somehow this led to me asking Tony if there were smart car cookie cutters as I knew how thrilled Lucas was with the jelly.  Alas, there didn’t seem to be.  Until now, that is!

The lovely Dave applied his ingenuity and a pair of pliers to an old 8cm cutter I had lying around and turned it into a recognisable Smart car.  How fabulous is that?  Just look how much detail he managed to create—there’s even the spoiler and it kicks out into the curvy rear bumper, too.

Nigella’s butter cut-out biscuit recipe from How to be a Domestic Goddess is the perfect dough for these biscuits as it doesn’t spread, and once baked I set to work icing each little car.  I’m told that what makes a Smart car special (and instantly recognisable) is the safety sill, so I paid special attention to that.  My ultimate goal was to have Lucas screech “Smart car!!” as soon as he was the cookies.  Which he did, so we were all quite thrilled about that.

I used royal icing to outline the biscuits then added in the curved swoop of the safety sill.  After letting the biscuits dry for five minutes or so, I flood-filled the safety sill and wheels on each cookie to bring the Smart cars to life.

You could fully ice the biscuits with royal icing and add the safety sill and detailing on top of that, but (a) that’s more work and (b) it would become really sweet, tipping the mum-o-meter from ‘goddess baking mummy’ to ‘feeding your child too much sugar mummy’.

Lucas loves his Smart car biscuits!  It’s quite hard trying to persuade him that they’re for eating, though.  Each biscuit has to be driven—road testing?—before he’ll consider eating it.  Smart car biscuits have even been raced down his click-clack car ramp and it pays to check the inside of his little garage, too, just in case one has been parked there overnight.  When he does finally decide that it’s time to eat one, the wheels go first, then the bonnet, and he works his way back to the bumper with a big grin on his face, as if he’s doing something especially naughty.  They were a huge hit at his birthday party, with all his friends happily driving them around before gobbling them up.  Food that you won’t get told off for playing with is a definite winner where toddlers are concerned.

The biscuits also have Uncle Tony’s seal of approval and I’ve even started baking them for the various Smart car events that he goes to.  Mark my words, Smart car biscuits will take over the world before long!

Spot the odd one out!

Nigella’s Butter Cut-Out Biscuits

Source: How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson
Makes anywhere between 40 and 60 biscuits, depending on the size you cut.

175g soft unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
400g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

2 baking sheets, greased or lined

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and moving towards moussiness, then beat in the eggs and vanilla.  In another bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt.  Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and mix gently.

Lay two large pieces of clingfilm on the counter and divide the dough equally between each.  Press down lightly to form discs then wrap up tightly and refridgerate for at least one hour.  (You can freeze one of the discs of dough if you don’t want to bake a large amount of cookies. Defrost it overnight in the fridge before using.)

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan oven/Gas Mark 4.

Lightly sprinkle the counter with flour, place a disc of dough on it, and sprnkle both the disc and a rolling pin with more flour.  Roll out to a thickness of about 5mm.  Cut into shapes, dipping the cutter into flour as you go and place the biscuits a little apart on the baking sheets.

Bake for 8-12 minutes, by which time they will be lightly golden around the edges.  Cool on a rack and continue with the rest of the dough.  The cooking time depends on what size of biscuits you’ve cut.

Ice however you’d like.  I use Royal icing but have included a recipe for glacé icing, too.

Simple glacé icing

300ml icing sugar, sieved
2 tablespoons boiling water
food colourings of your choice

Put the boiling water into a bowl and add the icing sugar, stirring well to make a thick paste.  Add a few drops more of water if you need to.  Colour however you’d like.

Royal icing

1 large egg white (or equivalent amount of egg white powder or pasteurised egg white)
250g icing sugar, sieved
food colourings of your choice

Place egg white and icing sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer.  Using the paddle attatchment beat together for 3 minutes on medium speed to form a thick icing.  It should stand up in soft peaks.  Place in a piping bag and decorate the cookies however you’d like.  You can colour this icing too, and also dilute it slightly with water to ‘flood’ outlined areas on your cookies (ie the wheels and safety sill on the Smart car cookies.)