So this week is Blue Week, a fundraiser for Plunket, and I’ve somehow managed to time it with this post containing BLUE biscuits!

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the fabulous work of Plunket NZ since even before my son was born, starting with antenatal classes and followed by late night phone calls to Plunketline (“he won’t stop crying and I’ve tried EVERYthing!”), my wonderful supportive Plunket nurse, and many parenting groups. Each Wednesday we trudge down to our local Plunket rooms to help out with a playgroup that’s open to all families with preschoolers. I can safely say that without the help of Plunket I would be severely worse off and less prepared in my parenting.

Am I the only one who looks at these biscuits and thinks of the cookie monster?! These cookies don’t have to be blue, but they do take their colour from one of the ingredients – leftover buttercream! After making my husband’s space-themed birthday cake recently, I didn’t have any future plans for grey-blue icing. So I got thinking that it’s basically the same(ish) as the creamed butter and sugar that I often start with when I make a batch of cookies. And so the recipe trials began!

This recipe is actually based on a fantastic one from my lovely friend Kate who gave it to me years ago and it is probably my most-made (and most praised!) bikkie recipe. She’s kindly agreed to let me post the original version at the end of the post, in case you want a fabulous recipe but don’t have any buttercream to use up.

Left-over Buttercream Biscuits

• 1 cup buttercream (butter, icing sugar, vanilla combination such as this recipe), approx. 220-250g
• 1/4 cup condensed milk
• 1 1/3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup chocolate bits (choc chips, buttons, or chopped chocolate)

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C and line two large baking trays with baking paper or silicone mats.
2. In a stand mixed or with a hand beater, beat the buttercream until soft, then add condensed milk.
3. Sift in the flour and baking powder into the buttercream bowl, and beat together at low speed.
4. Mix in the chocolate buttons or chips with a spatula – the dough will be very loose and seem dry.
5. Using your hands, roll the dough into tight balls, squishing it to hold together, and place on the baking tray at least 2″ apart. Press the top of each cookie with a fork to flatten it approx. halfway.
6. Bake for 15 minutes (any longer and the colour will fade or singe) and leave biscuits to cool on baking tray for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

The original recipe is very similar, but instead of buttercream the first step is to cream 225g of butter and 1/2 cup of sugar together, and after you add the condensed milk you’ll need 2 cups of flour. If you still want blue cookies… just add a few splashes of food colouring to the butter and sugar! I hope you have a go at both recipes – this is a handy one to know when you have no eggs in the house!!