A home made treat with added love
Preparation time: 30 minutes + chilling time
Cooking time: 15-20 minutes
Makes 6-8
Ingredients
175g plain flour
Pinch of salt
75g icing sugar
125g unsalted butter, diced
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
75g raspberry jam
75g apricot jam
Method
Sift the flour, salt and icing sugar into a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and rub it lightly into the flour mix, using your fingertips, until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolk and vanilla extract lightly together. Make a well in the centre of the flour mix. Add the egg and vanilla and work together to form a soft, smooth dough. (You can use a food processor if you have one). Place the dough in a polythene bag and place in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 170C / gas mark 3. Divide the chilled dough into two equal portions. Place one portion between two pieces of lightly floured greaseproof paper and roll the dough to approximately a 4mm thickness. Repeat with the second piece of dough. Remove the top sheet of paper.
With a large biscuit cutter, cut the dough into an even number of discs. Using a small heart cutter, cut out and remove the centre of half the biscuit discs.
Place all the discs on the baking sheets. Bake for 15–20 minutes until just firm and barely coloured. Don’t fully bake yet.
Remove from the oven and place a teaspoonful of jam in the centre of each whole biscuit round. Spread to 1.5cm from the edge. Place the heart cut-out rounds on top. Return to the oven and cook for a further 5–6 minutes by which time the biscuits will be evenly cooked and the jam sufficiently hot to stick the two halves of the biscuits together.
Leave the biscuits to cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.