Lent baking challenge, wk 2

Biscuit hearts

Biscuit hearts
Jesus, as teacher often spoke about the law, summing up the entirety of the books of the law with two simple and easy to remember ideas- love God, and love your neighbour. Simple and easy to remember; not so easy to do in practice!

This week we’ll make heart shaped biscuits to remind us of Jesus’ summary of the law.

Here's what you'll need:
Ingredients
250gm butter or margarine
260gm caster sugar
1 egg
tsp vanilla essence
tsp baking powder
½ tsp of salt
650g of plain flour

Method
Turn oven to 180 degrees/GM4.
Cream together butter or margarine and caster sugar.
Mix in egg and tsp of vanilla essence.
Add 1tsp of baking powder and ½ tsp of salt to 650g of plain flour.
Add this a little at a time to the butter and sugar mixture.
There’s quite a lot of flour to get through, so add it bit by bit and work it in carefully.
*option - you could choose to divide the mix in half, using food colouring to colour one lot of dough, or, alternatively, save this for the icing mixture below... or do both... your call!*
Let the dough chill in the fridge for half an hour before rolling it out. 

While the dough is chilling, draw a heart shape on a piece of paper to use as a template - unless you happen to have heart-shaped biscuit cutters floating about in your utensil drawer...!
Roll out the dough, and cut out heart shapes by laying template on the dough and cutting around.
Make sure you have an even number of hearts.
Pop them on a baking tray, and into an oven for about ten minutes.
Leave to cool.

for the buttercream icing - 
140gm butter, softened
280gm icing sugar
1-2 tbsp milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
... few drops of red food colouring, if you wish *see above option*
Put butter/ marg. into a bowl, add icing sugar and beat in.
You'll want this to be a good thick consistency, so add more icing sugar as needed.
Add food colouring and mix in.
Use mix to sandwich biscuits together - two at a time.

With each biscuit, you can remember Jesus’s words as you stick them together-
Love God, and Love your neighbour.

Reflection space
Over the week, spend time - maybe with a cuppa and a biscuit! - reflecting on God's love, and on Jesus' command to love God and love your neighbour. 
The greatest gift given by God is love.  God is love and with His love we can love Him and our neighbour.  God loved us so much that He gave His only Son for our lives. 
Love is patient and kind.  Love is not jealous, boastful, proud, or rude.  Love never fails. 
As you pray today, think about your love for Go and for your neighbour. 
Does God have your whole heart? 
Do you love others unconditionally? 
Love never gives up, never loses faith, and is always hopeful.

As part of loving God and neighbour, might there be someone you know this week who would appreciate a wee kindness of the gift of biscuits?

Prayer
God, whose name is Love,
You make yourself known to us
as the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Sustain us in the knowledge of your love
through the times in which we live.

God, whose love inspires, 
May we love you with all that we are
And love our neighbour in response to your love.
Through our service to others, may your love be revealed...
We ask in Jesus' name,
Amen