Tiny Royal Iced Gem Biscuits, fiddly but delicious

Ingredients:
200g plain flour
100g hard butter
100g caster sugar
1 egg
½ tablespoon golden syrup
500g powdered royal icing
food colouring

Place the flour and butter in a bowl, cut the butter into small pieces with a round bladed knife and rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Stir in the sugar and add the egg and syrup, mix to a dough, wrap in baking parchment or clingfilm and chill in the fridge for an hour for the dough to firm up.
Preheat the oven to 180c/gas 4. Roll out the dough between two sheets of lightly floured baking parchment until it’s around 5mm thick. Use a round cutter, 1.5-2cm diameter or the base of a piping nozzle, to cut lots of discs of dough out. Transfer to a greased baking tray and bake these for 10-15 minutes until they are golden brown.
Mix royal icing to stiff peak as per the instructions on the packet, use food colourings to colour the icing into different colours. Attach a nozzle to the piping bag, fill the bag with royal icing and pipe the icing onto the tops of the iced gems, leave overnight to firm up.