Jam Sandwich Biscuits

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Two baking trays
• •Baking parchment
• •Rolling pin
• •6cm fluted round cutter
• •Small cutter for the window (heart, star, or small round)
• •Wire cooling rack
• •Sieve for dusting

Instructions

1. 1

   Cream butter and sugar

   Put the soft butter and icing sugar into a bowl and beat them together until they go pale and fluffy. A wooden spoon is fine. An electric whisk is faster. Either way, you're after a mixture that looks like clotted cream and clings to the back of the spoon. Don't rush this. The air you beat in now is what gives the biscuits their melt.

   The butter wants to be soft enough that your finger leaves a dent without resistance, but still cool to the touch. Greasy, half-melted butter makes biscuits that spread and lose their cutout.
2. 2

   Add yolk and vanilla

   Beat in the egg yolk and the vanilla. The mixture will loosen and look slightly curdled for a moment. Don't worry. It comes back together as soon as the flour goes in.

3. 3

   Bring in the flour

   Sift the flour and salt over the top. Fold it in with a spatula or your hands until the dough just comes together. Stop the moment it does. Overworked shortbread turns tough, and there's no rescuing it. The dough should feel soft but not sticky. If it's a bit dry, a teaspoon of cold milk helps.

4. 4

   Chill the dough

   Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface, press it into two flat discs, wrap them in baking parchment, and put them in the fridge for half an hour. Cold dough rolls cleanly and holds its shape in the oven. Warm dough fights you the whole way.

   If you've got children helping, this is the moment to make the tea and let everyone wash the butter off their hands. The dough needs the rest more than you do.
5. 5

   Roll and cut

   Heat the oven to 170C/150C fan. Line two baking trays with parchment. Roll the first disc out on a lightly floured surface to about 4mm thick. Cut out rounds with a 6cm fluted cutter. Half of the rounds will be the bases. From the other half, cut a small shape from the centre with a tiny cutter, a heart, a star, a circle, whatever you've got. These are the lids. Lift them onto the trays with a palette knife. Re-roll the scraps once, no more, or the biscuits get tough.

6. 6

   Bake until pale gold

   Bake for twelve to fifteen minutes. You're not after colour. You want them barely golden at the edges and still pale on top, the colour of fresh cream rather than honey. Shortbread carries on cooking after you take it out of the oven, and overbaked biscuits taste of nothing but flour. Trust your nose. When the kitchen starts to smell of butter and warm vanilla, look in.

7. 7

   Cool completely

   Let the biscuits sit on the tray for a couple of minutes, then move them carefully to a wire rack. They're fragile while warm and firm up as they cool. Don't touch them until they're properly cold. Warm shortbread under jam turns sad and soft.

8. 8

   Sandwich with jam

   Dust the cutout lids generously with icing sugar while they're still on the rack. Spoon a teaspoon of raspberry jam onto each base, just enough to spread to the edges when you press the lid down. The jam should peek through the little window, bright and glossy, like a stained glass panel. Press gently. Eat one straight away because nobody's watching, and the first one is always yours.

   Dust the icing sugar before you sandwich, not after. Otherwise the sugar settles on the jam and goes wet and patchy within an hour.

Chef Tips

• •The jam matters more than you'd think. A cheap, glossy supermarket jam tastes of sugar and not much else. A good one, the kind from a small producer or made at home in summer, tastes of the actual fruit and is the difference between a fine biscuit and one worth the trouble.
• •Don't skip the chilling. Half an hour in the fridge makes the dough roll cleanly and stops the biscuits spreading. Warm dough gives you blobs with no edges, and the cutout window closes up in the oven.
• •If the dough cracks at the edges as you roll, it's too cold. Let it sit for five minutes and try again. If it sticks to the rolling pin, it's too warm. Back to the fridge for ten. Pastry is mostly about temperature.
• •Store the biscuits unfilled if you're making them ahead. Sandwich them with jam on the day you want to eat them. Filled biscuits go soft within a day, which isn't a tragedy, just a fact.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be made two days ahead and kept wrapped in the fridge. Let it sit out for ten minutes before rolling so it isn't rock-hard.
• •The dough also freezes well for up to a month. Defrost overnight in the fridge.
• •Unfilled biscuits keep in an airtight tin for up to five days. Sandwich with jam on the day you want to serve them, or the morning of.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 65g)