Snowman empire biscuits

Method

1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (use a hand mixer or do it by hand with a wooden spoon), then mix in the egg and vanilla. Sift in the flour in batches and mix well to combine.
2. Lightly flour a work surface and roll out the dough to 5mm thick. Use the cutter to cut out the biscuits; you should have 24-28. Put them on a lined baking tray, leaving space between the biscuits to spread. Put them in the fridge for at least 1 hour to firm up.
3. Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4. Bake for 10 minutes; you want the biscuits to still be light in colour. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
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4. Roll out the white icing to about 2mm thick. With the same cutter, cut out circles of icing (half as many icing circles as biscuits.) Lightly brush the undersides with lukewarm water and stick them to half the biscuits.
5. Roll out the red icing in the same way and cut 12-14 circles from it, then slice them in half – you might want to trim the straight sides a little more to give room to create the faces. Attach these to the top half of the white-iced biscuits using a touch of water to create the snowmen’s hats.
6. Dampen the areas of the hats where you want to apply sprinkles and pipe white writing icing to create patterns on them. Dampen the white icing and form small balls from the black icing for the eyes and smile, placing these on the faces along with a Jelly Tot for the nose.
7. Spread 1 tbsp jam on each of the remaining biscuits. Gently press the decorated biscuits onto the jam-covered biscuits. Leave them to set for roughly 30 minutes before serving