'Thank You' Biscuits

In my family, it's always tradition to send off 'Thank You' cards and letters to friends and family in January, after all the chaos of Christmas gift-giving has subsided. For me in particular, having my birthday on Christmas Eve means that I'll often receive double the amount of lovely things over the festive period and, therefore, it would be insanely rude of me to not hand out little notes thanking everyone for their generosity!

Subsequently, I've developed my own little tradition of popping to Paperchase or perusing pretty online shops in the January sales and picking up a couple of boxes of notecards to send off to people. Here are my personal favourites of this year's stationery offerings, if you'd like to scribble a little something in thanks:

1. Katie Leamon 'Hello You' Notecards (I think these would work really well as casual party invites too... imagine getting that dotty envelope through the post!) 2. Portico 'Foiled Thank You Cards'  3. Wildflower Illustration Co. 'Floral Letter Writing Notecards' 4. Paperchase 'Moo Chas Gracias' Notecards

However, this year I decided to go a little off piste and send out something a little sweeter than the usual cute notecard...  

These biscuits are small enough and light enough to be parcelled up and sent out to your loved ones without the need for hefty postage costs. What's more, as they're a rather sturdy and old-fashioned form of traditional shortbread, they should also keep for a fairly long time too- so no need to panic about good old Auntie Hilda getting a box of stale biscuits through the post!

As we're all in that post-Christmas sluggish slump, I thought I would pick a biscuit that won't take too long to make or too much effort to whip together. If you're feeling particularly energised (who are you?), you could even chop up some leftover Christmas chocolate and use it as chocolate chips for an extra special treat!

If you fancy making some, you just need three simple ingredients for these classic shortbread biscuits:

* 125g/4oz butter
* 55g/2oz caster sugar
* 180g/60z plain flour

To make:

1. Heat your oven to 190c/375f/Gas 5 and line a baking tray with parchment.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth. Then, stir in the flour until you get a paste. If everything is looking a little breadcrumb-y, you might need to work the mixture together with your hands.
3. Turn the biscuit dough out onto a floured surface and roll until roughly 1cm/1/2 inch thick.
4. Cut into rounds and stamp each biscuit with 'Thank You' before transferring it to the baking tray. I used a Cookie Stamp Kit I got for Christmas to stamp my message, but you can find similar kits online. 
5. Sprinkle the biscuits with some more caster sugar and place in the fridge for around 20mins to firm them up a little.
6. Bake in the oven for around 15mins until pale brown in colour (keep an eye on them though- mine were done in 10!) and then transfer to a wire rack to cool down.

That's all there is to these little biscuits! Package them up however you like and get them sent off now for some serious family brownie points!  

Do you have any January 'Thank You' traditions? I'd love to hear about them in the comments below. I really hope you all had a lovely festive break... I seriously can't wait to share everything I have planned for The Freckled Fieldnotes (+ Little Fieldnotes) in 2017 with you all, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled! 

In the meantime,
All the love & Happy New Year!

Sian x