Nice Biscuits are a very popular biscuit or cookie in the UK. The name is pronounce ‘niece’ the same as the French City. There is a theory that the biscuits got the name from that city when Queen Victoria ate some when she visited there. But who knows? Certainly not me. Anyway these are a crunchy biscuit, simple to make, that have dessicated coconut in them to give flavour and some additional texture.
Although by tradition they are large rectangles with scalloped edges they can be made any shape you wish, and certainly any size. I had a large rectangular cookie cutter so I used that. I also imprinted the name NICE on to top of each one, as they is how they are presented when shop bought. But again that is not necessary as it clearly has no impact on baking or flavour.
They don’t take long to make and are very tasty indeed. The recipe below makes about 30 of the size I made, and I baked mine in batches for 12 minutes. They just need to bake until they take on a little colour and then allowed to cool to firm to a nice crisp biscuit/cookie.
- 50g(2/3 cup) dessicated coconut( I used unsweetened)
- 200g(1 1/2 cups)plain flour
- 100g(3/4 cup) cornflour
- 110g(scant 1 cup)icing sugar
- 225g(1 cup) softened unsalted butter
- pinch of salt
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar
Method:
- In a bowl place the butter and sugar and cream together until light and fluffy(I used my hand mixer).
- Mix the flour, salt, cornflour and coconut together and tip into the butter mixture.
- Mix together until everything starts to clump together.
- Tip out onto some plastic wrap and pull together into a dough.
- Wrap in the plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/350F.
- Line a couple of baking trays with parchment paper.
- Roll out the dough to a thickness of 3mm(about 1/3 inch) – I did this in batches.
- Use a cookie cutter of the desired shape to cut out the cookies and, if you wish to impress the words NICE on them do so.
- Transfer to a baking tray and sprinkle some granulated sugar over the top.
- Bake in the oven for 12 minutes, until the cookies just start to change colour.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray for 2 minutes. Then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.