How to Decorate Halloween Biscuits

In a bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolk and the orange zest. Sieve in the flour and cinnamon and enough milk to make a fairly soft dough.

Use your hands to bring the dough together, giving it a light knead on a work surface. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Tip: You can easily change the flavour of the biscuit dough - you could use lemon zest or just vanilla or almond extract.

Preheat the oven to 350F/160C fan/gas 4 and line 2 baking trays with baking paper.

Remove the dough from the fridge and roll it out on a lightly floured surface to the thickness of a pound coin.

Use the Halloween cutters to cut out the shapes and place them on the prepared trays.

Bake the biscuits for 8-12 minutes or until the edges are just turning brown.

Transfer the biscuits onto a wire rack to cool.

Roll out white icing approximately 3mm thick on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar. Use the ghost cutter to cut out the same number of shapes as there are biscuits.

Brush the back of each icing shape with a little edible glue and fix to the surface of each biscuit.

Mix up 2 or 3 tablespoons of royal icing in a small bowl with enough black food colouring to make a deep dark shade. Add a little extra icing sugar to make the icing a stiff consistency for piping.

Put the icing in a piping bag fitted with a very small writing nozzle.

Pipe 2 dots on each biscuit for the eyes and a curved line stretching from hand to hand.

Thinly roll out orange icing and use a sharp knife to cut 3 bunting triangles per biscuit. Attach these with edible glue and position them under the black piped line.

To finish, pipe the word ‘BOO’ on the bunting and add a piped bow at each end of the black string.

Thinly roll out purple icing and cut small, narrow strips for the band around the hat.

Add star sprinkles to decorate.

Knead purple icing in your hands until warm and pliable. Roll 1 small ball for the head of the spider and another slightly larger oval ball for the body.

Make 8 long thin sausages for the legs and taper them at one end.

Attach the legs to the biscuit with edible glue, trimming them to fit. Attach the body and head on top.

Brush a strip of edible glue down the middle of the body and sprinkle with purple sugar crystals.

Shake off any excess and use a dry brush to remove any stray crystals.