Feeling jammy

A mixture of drawn out birthday celebrations and family stuff meant that I didn't get a chance to write a post until now.  A beautiful lunch was spent at one of my favourite restaurants in Swansea, Patrick's , lingering over the delicious food. 

I had a beautiful local goat's cheese with beetroot and homemade pickle - gorgeous!  My main course was plaice on a mussel, cockle and leek chowder...heavenly!  Mr Happy Larder's food choices were equally amazing with potted pork terrine followed by lamb three ways.  We were too stuffed for dessert but had coffee that came with a tiny chocolate brownie - just enough to hit that sweet spot. We don't go out for food that often these days but when we do, it feels really special and we love it.  I did have to restrain myself from taking photos of our food :-)

Definitely a lot simpler is today's recipe: jam cakes, also known as jammy dodgers.  Basically, they are shortbread-type biscuits sandwiched together with jam.  I used raspberry and strawberry jam and made large biscuits but you can make smaller ones too.  And I used a small biscuit cutter to cut out the middle.  They were so quick to make (less than half an hour including baking) and very tasty indeed.  I hope you like these as a treat!


Jam cakes (makes 12 "sandwiched" biscuits)


Ingredients:

225g unsalted butter, softened
110g caster sugar
350g self-raising flour
½ tsp salt
6 tbsp raspberry jam
1 tbsp icing sugar

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4. In a bowl, mix together the butter and sugar until creamy and smooth, and gradually work in the flour and salt.
2. Bring together to form a firm dough and turn on to a lightly floured surface. Roll out to a thickness of 6mm and, using a 5cm pastry cutter, cut out 24 rounds, re-rolling the dough as necessary. Cut holes from the middle of 12 rounds using a smaller cutter.
3. Arrange spaced apart on baking sheets lined with baking parchment and bake for about 10 minutes until risen and golden. 
4. Allow to cool on the baking sheets and then transfer to a cooling rack. Sandwich the rounds together with jam and dust lightly with icing sugar just before serving.

 

(recipe from Channel 4 website)