08 Sep Jam Sandwich Biscuits

I often find myself experimenting with challenging recipes. Sometimes they work out beautifully. Other times they need a bit of tweaking. And then there are times that they are just a complete fail! For the most part this is fun for me, and working through the glitches and perfecting a recipe is what makes me tick. But it can get frustrating at times too. So every now and then I feel the need to make an old-school recipe. A recipe that I know is going to work perfectly first time. A recipe that requires very little effort to achieve a pretty and delicious result. This jam sandwich biscuit recipe is exactly that!

I’m sure you’d agree that these biscuits are a delight to look at, but they definitely deliver on taste too. The buttery, crisp biscuits are complemented perfectly by the tart, sticky jam. I guess there is a reason this classic has stood the test of time!

I used home-made raspberry jam for the filling, that I sieved to remove the seeds – I just think it looks nicer! You could use any jam though. If you are in the mood to mix things up a bit, perhaps try using lemon curd or clementine curd?

Ingredients:
(Makes about 20 cookies)

250g salted butter, softened (1 cup)
125g icing sugar (1 cup)
5ml vanilla extract (1 tsp)
1 large egg yolk
350g flour (2½ cups)

About 200ml smooth raspberry jam
1 Tbsp icing sugar for sifting

Directions:

• Cream together the butter and icing sugar.
• Add the vanilla extract and egg yolk and beat the mixture well.
• Gradually mix in the flour until you have a firm dough. Do not overwork the mixture.
• Shape the dough into a flat disc and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
• Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Dust a rolling pin and your work area with flour.
• Roll out your dough to 3mm thickness. Use a fluted or plain round cutter (about 5cm or 6cm in diameter) to cut out your biscuit shapes. Then use a second smaller cutter (eg. heart or flower) to cut out the centres of half the biscuits.
• Place the biscuits about 2cm apart on a lightly greased baking tray. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the biscuits are just turning golden.
• Allow the biscuits to cool on the tray for a few minutes, then place on a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
• Once the biscuits have cooled, sift icing sugar over the biscuits with the cut out centres.
• Place about a teaspoon of jam onto each of the solid biscuits, then place a cut-out biscuit on top and sandwich together.
• Store the jam sandwich biscuits in an airtight container for a few days.