I know, I know. I’m a little behind. I should have started posting this kind of recipe a while ago but this time of the year is hard on us interior designers: everyone wants their home beautiful and ready for the holidays! But I promise I’ll try to catch up 🙂

Now these biscuits… Wow! They melt in your mouth, so buttery and flaky!

FESTIVE JAMMIE DODGERS
(source: Tana Ramsay)

INGREDIENTS
225g unsalted butter, softened
100g caster sugar
200g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
100g ground almonds
100g jam (about half a jar)

METHOD
Put butter, sugar, flour and almonds into a food processor and whizz until the mixture just comes together and forms a ball. If making by hand, first beat together butter and sugar, then add flour and ground almonds. Wrap in cling film and leave in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
Remove the dough from the fridge and knead until it is soft enough to shape and roll. Divide into two even-size balls. Sprinkle a little plain flour over your work surface and roll out one ball of pastry. The dough should be approximately 5mm thick. Using a star cutter dipped in a little flour to stop it from sticking, cut out as many star shapes as you can. Then lightly knead the dough trimmings together and roll out again. Using a smaller star cutter, pierce the centre of every other star. Carefully place the stars on a baking sheet, making sure you keep them slightly apart.
Roll out the second ball of dough the same way and cut out stars, making sure you end up with an equal number of both stars.
Heat oven to 140°C/fan 120°C/gas 1 and cook the biscuits for 20-30 minutes until just golden. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack to cool completely. Place a blob of jam onto the centre of the biscuits without the cut-out star. Be generous – you want the jam to show at the edges as well as the centre. Place the top halves of the biscuits on and push down gently.

NOTES: I had a bit of a hard time because my star cutters were far too small and, to make things worse, I decided to cut out a teeny tiny star in the centre of an already tiny star! Tana was much wiser: she made bigger stars and cut out circles in the centre.
The downside about these is that they don’t keep long because the jam lends humidity to the biscuits. So ’tis best to eat them all within 2 days – which is not a hard thing at all! 🙂