Everybody knows these biscuits in some shape or form. And I cannot imagine anyone not loving these. They softly melt in the mouth and you have to be quick to catch the crumbs because you don’t want to miss one little tasty morsel. They are delicious on their own and adding buttercream and jam in the centre makes them heavenly.
Piping these does require some muscle power as the batter is thick. Go slowly and you will be rewarded later when not much effort is needed to eat them.
Tips when making the biscuits
It does help to chill the biscuit dough for about half an hour before piping as this helps the biscuits hold their shape when baking.
Keep about a 5cm distance between the biscuits when baking.
If you don’t want to pipe shapes, slightly wet your hands and roll balls of batter smaller than a golf ball and press down lightly with a fork. The slightly wet hands prevents the dough from sticking to your hands.
You can add almond or vanilla essence for flavouring.
The biscuits are great on their own but do give them a try with a filling.
Use a strong, thick piping bag and a large star nozzle to pipe shapes.
The buttercream does not have to be piped on. You can use use a spatula and spread the cream filling on.
In colder weather, you don’t have to refrigerate the dough.
It is harder to pipe cold biscuit dough so you can pipe the shapes and refrigerate the trays. Make sure you create enough space in your fridge to handle 2 trays.
Work slowly when piping as you do need some muscle.
Ingredients for biscuits (makes 15 sandwich cookies)
250g soft butter
50g icing sugar
225g cake flour
1/2 tsp almond or vanilla extract/essence
25g cornstarch
Ingredients for filling
100g soft butter
1/2 tsp vanilla or almond extract/essence
200g sifted powdered sugar
1/2c strawberry or raspberry jam
Method
- Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
- Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper. Using a 5cm round cookie cutter and a pencil, trace 15-16 circles on the baking, leaving a 5cm space between each circle.
- Turn the baking paper on the other side so that the pencilled side faces the bottom of the baking sheet, and the circles are evident on the reverse side.
- In a mixing bowl, beat the butter and icing sugar until soft, fluffy and pale in colour.
- Add the vanilla or almond extract and beat to mix.
- Sift the icing sugar and cornstarch together and add to the creamed mixture.
- Beat the mixture until flours and butter mixture are well combined.
- If the weather is very warm and the dough is very soft, refrigerate for at least half an hour. If the weather is cold and your dough is fairly stiff, you can go ahead and pipe your shapes. Alternatively, you can pipe your shapes on baking trays and stick the trays in the fridge for half an hour.
- Fill the piping bag with the mixture.
- Pipe rosette swirls using the circles as a guide. Start piping from the outside and slowly make your way to the middle ending with a small peak, not a mound.
The rosettes will spread slightly when baking. - Once done piping, bake for 10-15 minutes until light golden around the edges.
- Once out of the oven, leave to cool for 10 minutes. If you remove the biscuits too quickly they will break.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Prepare filling
- Beat butter with an electric beater until pale and fluffy.
- Add sifted icing sugar and extract/essence to butter and beat well together until you have a creamy buttercream.
- Spoon buttercream into a small piping bag with a small star tip. You can omit the piping and use a spatula and add a thick coating to one half of the biscuit sandwich.
- Spoon about 1 teaspoon of jam to one half of the biscuit and buttercream to another biscuit.
- Gently sandwich the 2 layers together.
- As an added touch, sift some icing sugar lightly over the biscuit sandwich.
