Mostly we just snack on fruit – more because Bert’s appetite for sweetness is insatiable than any principled rejection of sugar. And let’s face it, he’s already a well padded boy. But everyone could do with a biscuit now and then and these are more fun to cut out than play doh is.

We used the letters B, E, R and T and some random animal shapes. Use all the letters of the alphabet for the opportunity to offer someone a snack and insult them at the same time.

Makes about 30 small biscuits

250g plain flour

125g butter

80g icing sugar

Tablespoon of cocoa powder

Finely grated zest of an orange

Juice of an orange

Rub the butter into the dry ingredients by hand, or put them all into a food processor until they start to look like breadcrumbs. Add the orange juice till the mixture comes together and then bring it into a ball and chill.

Roll out on a floured surface to about 5mm thick and cut out your shapes (or encourage a child with still developing hand-eye co-ordination to do the same – you may lose some cookies to raw tasting). Put on a lined baking sheet and cook at 160 degrees (I did it on the bottom rung of the roasting oven with the cool shelf two shelves above) for about 10-12 minutes.

I see this is the first time I’ve tagged ‘chocolate’ as an ingredient. How restrained I’ve been.