Jammy Dodgers are usually made from a shortbread type biscuit, but these are harder and crunchier than shortbread. If you prefer to stick to the traditional shortbread jammy dodger, you can use the recipe for lemon shortbread from my website, but just leave out the lemon zest. However, these crunchy ones are lovely and I would urge you to try them.
Not only are they something different, but they are really quick and easy to make. I made 12 of them in around half an hour, from start to finish, including the cooking time.
This is a great recipe to make with children, who don’t always have the patience to wait for biscuit dough to chill in the fridge. There is no need to chill this dough.
Ingredients for 12:
115g butter (softened)
60g white sugar
175g self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
Strawberry jam for the middle
Icing sugar for dusting
Start by mixing the butter and the sugar together. You can use the whisk attachment on your blender or use your fingers. When the mixture begins to look like crumbs, add the flour and the pinch of salt and continue to whisk together until all the flour is blended in. At this stage, the mixture will look quite dry, but if you use your hands to squish the mixture together, it soon forms a dough.
Roll the dough out onto a worktop which has been sprinkled with plenty of flour. If you find that it falls apart, just squish it back together again and continue rolling until the dough is around ¼ cm thick. Then cut out 12 circles with a 6cm cookie cutter and arrange them on a large baking tray, which has been lined with baking paper.
For the 12 top layers, use the same 6cm cutter and then use a much smaller cutter to cut the hole out of the middle. You may need to use the circles of dough you cut out to roll back together to make more biscuit tops. Arrange them on another baking tray, lined with baking paper.
Bake for 8 minutes at 190 degrees. The tops will go brown before the bottoms, which is why you should use 2 separate baking trays. Keep your eye on them, as you may need to take the tops out of the oven a minute or so before the bottoms.
Put the bottom biscuits on a wire rack to cool and then, using a teaspoon, put a small blob of raspberry or strawberry jam into the middle of the biscuit, place the top biscuits on top of the jam and then leave them to cool for around 10 minutes.
When the biscuits are cool, dust them with some icing sugar, sprinkled on through a sieve.
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