A sweet remedy for English football

I would be lying if I said I was a huge fan of football. It's a big deal in England, big enough that the past has seen riots started over who's team won. We even have a name for it here, "Football Hooliganism". In most parts of the country, you'd be hard pressed to find a person who had never watched the World Cup or didn't support their local team. As a child on holiday many years ago, I met some children from Manchester who just couldn't understand why I didn't support any team whatsoever, especially not their beloved Manchester United. It was as if I had told them I could breathe underwater.

In my early twenties, I had no hard feelings towards the sport but until quite recently it's unlikely you would find me sat in front of a game on the tellybox. This year though a few things have changed.

Since January of this year, every Sunday night I watch football with my best friend, a lifelong Liverpool F.C. supporter. He's very loud and very scouse - there's lots of shouting in Liverpudlian at the TV when the game goes tits up. I'm from the south east of England, so our accents and behaviours are at opposite ends of the very English spectrum. It has been rather a lot of fun though.

More recently we decided to make some sweet treats for our football watching sessions on a Sunday night. We had grown tired (and fat) of our usual prescription of Domino's and decided to make something for ourselves. Initially it started as a bit of a challenge, neither of us altogether confident in the kitchen but after a few practice attempts we perfected a few football-themed baked treats.

Here's our favourite from January so far, we hope you enjoy them.

English Vanilla Soccer Biscuits

Ingredients (for 20 biscuits)

• 90g of slightly softened, unsalted butter
• 100g of unrefined golden caster sugar
• 1 large egg
• ½ tsp of vanilla extract
• 200g of plain white flour
• ½ tsp of baking powder
• ½ tsp of salt

The Recipe

1) Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and put to one side.

2) In a separate bowl mix the butter and sugar together until it forms a paste like mixture. When ready, beat in the egg and vanilla extract.

3) Add the flour to the butter mix and whip together until the biscuit dough is formed. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and pop in the fridge to cool for at least one hour.

4) Switch the oven to 170°C. Roll the biscuit dough out on a lightly floured surface to about half a centimeter.

5) Cut out the biscuits using a circular stencil and transfer to a baking sheet. Roll up any leftover dough and use these to make more biscuits if time. Bake for 8 – 12 minutes until they are golden in colour.

6) Remove biscuits and leave to cool. Don't attempt to decorate before they are cool or else you will end up with a melty mess.

The Decoration

For this part we used plain white icing and black decorative icing with a thin pipette attached.

The Verdict: This was the first set of baked treats we made and we think they were super easy to do. These would probably go down well with kids or with anyone who isn't all that confident in the kitchen (like us)! The only tricky part was drawing on the design, so no drinking beer until you're done...it is worth it in the end because these biscuits tasted great.

On-The-Pitch Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients (for 12 cupcakes)

• 110g of slightly softened butter
• 110g of golden caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• ½ tsp of vanilla extract
• 110g of self-raising flour

The Recipe

1) Turn the oven to 180C and fill a 12 cupcake tray with cases ready to go.

2) Using an electric whisk whip up 110g of softened butter and 110g golden caster sugar together until pale and fluffy. Once done, whisk in 2 large eggs one at a time. Make sure to scrape round the edge of the bowl to get everything in the mix.

3) Add ½ tsp of vanilla extract, 110g of self-raising flour and a pinch of salt to the mix. When ready it's time to whisk until just the mixture is combined then spoon into the cupcake cases.

4) Bake your cupcakes for a grand total of 15 mins. By this point they should be a nice golden brown. Leave to cool completely before adding any decoration or icing (otherwise it will melt!).

The Decoration

The Verdict: If you like your treats super sickly sweet, these are the ones to go for. Whilst they're a little bit more tricky to make than the biscuits, the cupcakes worked out well in terms of flavor: they were particularly light and fluffy. The icing however makes them quite heavy, so we could only eat one of these at a time. It's likely anyone with a severe sweet tooth will go nuts for these, so have a few on hand at your next Football watching session.