FUNDRAISING: Vanilla Sugar Cookies

Before I begin, let me just explain. Fundraising? What? You're confused. To be honest, I'm confused too. Somehow I ended up in this mess where I need to raise £3645 to go on a trip to Madagascar to trek and do community work, which is set up by World Challenge. But £3645 is a hell of a lot of money, I get frightened even thinking about it.

So, to kickstart my funds, I've taken to baking. Why not incorporate something fun into something not-so-fun? The aim is to bake edible goods twice a week, and then bring them into school. Because, at my school, if you're the girl with food/gum/money, you will momentarily be the most popular girl in school.

Ingredients

200g unsalted butter, softened

200g caster sugar

vanilla essence

1 medium egg

400g plain flour

For the icing:

500g icing sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method

1. Put the butter and sugar into a mixing bowl. Beat with an electric whisk until very light and creamy. Add the vanilla essence and gradually add the egg, beating well after each addition.

2. Sift the flour into the bowl and work in, using a low speed. Use your hand to bring the mixture together and make a soft dough. Divide the dough in half and form each portion into a thick disk. Wrap in clingfilm and chill until firm - about 30 minutes.

3. During this time, you can line 2-3 baking trays with greaseproof paper and preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.

4. Roll out the dough, a portion at a time, on a floured work surface to a thickness of 5mm. Cut out the shapes using cutters. Father up the trimmings, knead gently, then re-roll and cut out more biscuits. Arrange the biscuits slightly apart on the lined baking trays to allow for spreading.

5. Bake the biscuits for 9 to 12 minutes, until just starting to turn golden brown around the edges and firm to touch. Remove from the oven, leave to firm up for a minute, then transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to cool completely.

6. When ready to decorate, mix the icing sugar with 2 teaspoons of lemon juice and about 2 tablespoons of cold water to make a stiff icing that could be piped if desired. Decorate!

Note to self: never try spreading icing this way again. It doesn't work. It gets messy. It takes too long. And your mum will get involved, and complain about absolutely everything...

So there you go. I strolled back into school the first day back, and by 10:45, all of the Year 8's would have called me their best friend. Their hungry eyes screamed for sugar cookies.

I'm going to try out lot's of different baking ideas for the little 'uns, until I get something completely perfect. Then, I'll just bake that until it starts spilling out of my ears. So it's all good.

There's been a lack of defaced eggs for a while. So they're back! I cherished my tiny Harry Potter egg, until my mum brutally destroyed it making me scrambled eggs. I guess the boy who lived came to die!