Being that February is the month of love, I thought this delicious shortbread would be ideal to make for your loved ones, young and old. Of course, you can adapt the biscuits to whatever shape takes your fancy – if you cut out the centres with a smaller round cutter you will end up with your very own jammie dodgers!
Ingredients:
- 260g plain flour
- 226g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 60g icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp salt
- Strawberry jam (or jam of your choice – lemon curd is good too)
- Biscuit cutters (I use a 3.5cm round cutter and a small heart – yielding 12-15 biscuits)
Method:
- Place your butter in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Add the icing sugar and continue to beat until smooth
- Mix in the vanilla essence
- With a spoon gently mix in the flour and salt. You will need to bring the mixture together with your hands until it is well combined. (Don’t worry it will come together). Flatten the dough into the size of a small plate: approx 8cm
- Place the dough in a plastic bag and leave in the fridge to rest for approx. 30 mins
- Preheat oven to 175 C/150 Fan or gas mark 3
- Remove dough from the fridge and roll out onto a lightly floured surface until it is about 1cm thick. Cut out rounds with the biscuit cutter. You will be sandwiching the biscuits together so remember to keep half the rounds whole. Cut out the middle of the remaining rounds using the shape of your choice (I’ve used a heart)
- Place on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for approx 10 mins until the biscuits are lightly browned
- Transfer to a cooling rack and leave until completely cold
- Place the biscuits with the cut-outs on a wire rack and dust the tops with icing sugar.
- Spread the remaining biscuits with jam and gently sandwich together, being careful not to smudge the icing sugar tops. Fill the cut-outs with a little more jam.
Recipe by Pauline Mardell
