does anyone have a tried and tested failsafe recipe for biscuits that won't miraculously turn in to a mono biscuit in the oven?

[headfairy]

ds and I have rather fruitlessly been trying to make nice shaped biscuits with our Christmassy cookie cutters, but each time we put them in the oven they come out massively spread out across the baking sheet in one hideous mono biscuit. Not nice for decorating :(

Either, can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong or give me a recipe and their top tip for keeping biscuit shapes while they're cooking pretty please :)

1 oz sugar
2 oz butter
3 oz flour

Put in dried fruit / choc chips and double up as necessary. Roll out to about £1 coin thickness and bake at 180 for about 10 mins!

these come out really well. Have never bothered icing them though!

What kind of flour are you using? I think biscuits mostly need plain flour, not self raising, as they don't want to rise?

talkingnonsense I'm using plain flour.

Potteringalong that's pretty much a shortbread recipe isn't it? (123 recipe is what I've always used) but the last time we used that recipe our "pretty" stars were just blobs. Am I cooking it too long?

shrinkingnora thanks for that recipe, I'll give that a go this weekend.

I used to have the same problem so I used slightly more flour and sugar and turned the oven down to 150 and it was fine!

Cut them and then chill on the baking sheet until the dough is firm. I made shortbread today using my mums Mary berry cake book which I pinched and ths is what she advised. I cut star shapes and they came out fine.

ooh top tip bagpuss I will also try that with my 123 recipe.. we're going to have a lot of biscuits in our house this weekend :o

happysmellyfeet I did wonder if I'd got the ratio of fat to dry ingredients wrong because they'd spread out so much. I assumed it was the fat melting and causing them to spread as there was no dry bulk holding them together. Will also try that.