A perfect bake if you’re looking for something to make with children 🙂
I wanted to make something with my son and, after some Googling, I came across this simple biscuit recipe. It calls for jam to be used in the centre, but I made half the biscuits with jam centres and half with chocolate hazelnut spread centres.
Ingredients (makes approx. 50 biscuits)
- 270 g / 9.5 oz plain flour
- 0.5 tsp baking powder
- 190 g / 7 oz butter
- 150 g / 5.5 oz sugar (the original recipe calls for granulated sugar. I only had caster sugar and it worked fine)
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- Some jam and/or chocolate spread (you could probably use peanut butter too!)
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C (or 160 if you have a fan oven)/ Gas Mark 4 / 350 degrees F. Grease and line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper. I had to reuse each of my sheets twice, baking the biscuits in two batches.
Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl. Mix.
In another bowl, beat together the butter and sugar. Best to use a mixer or electric hand beaters because you need to beat the butter and sugar for a few minutes until fluffy. Add the vanilla essence and egg and continue to beat until the ingredients have combined. Now add half the dry ingredients and mix in slowly. Finally add the second half of the dry ingredients and stir until you have a smooth dough.
Shape the dough into small balls. This is the fun bit to do with children. Try to get the dough balls 2 cm (or about an inch if you prefer imperial) in diameter. You can roll them in some sugar if you like (optional extra sweetness!). This does help counteract any dough stickiness.
Put the balls on a baking sheet, making sure to leave at least an inch between them. I included a random teaspoon in the following picture to give you an idea of scale!
Make a depression in the middle of each of the dough balls using your thumb. The following picture shows the ones my son did!
And these are the slightly neater ones I made:
Fill the depressions in your biscuits with jam (strawberry, raspberry… whatever flavour you prefer) or chocolate hazelnut spread. I used a teaspoon to gently drop the jam in. This is a fiddly job which is probably best done by an adult.
Bake for 10-15 minutes until the edges are golden. Remove from the oven, leave to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.
Store your finished biscuits in an airtight container. They may not look like much but they are surprisingly moreish.
Given how much I like chocolate, I was surprised to find I preferred the jammy centres. The sharp sweetness of the raspberry jam goes really well with the butter flavour of the biscuits.
Looking for some other biscuit/ cookie recipes? Try these!
Caramel smiley face biscuits.
Chewy chocolate chip cookies.
Claire Huston / Art and Soul
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Art and Soul 
Testing if I can leave a comment here on those deliciously looking cookies ^^
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This did go to spam first 😦 Sorry! Hopefully now I’ve marked it as “not spam” this won’t happen again.
It’s so weird. You’re comments have always published before just fine!
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I found out after a couple of hours of comments not showing up *sighs* I don’t even know if this one will! Maybe someone marked me as a spammer >.> Either way, thank you so much! ❤
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Yum! Reminds me of my childhood making these with my Mom 😀 It was one of our favorite recipes to make together, besides peanut butter cookies. I always loved rolling the balls and then making the criss cross pattern with the fork.
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Yum! These look pretty simple and fun to do with children 🙂
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They’re very easy, particularly if you have an electric mixer which takes all the hard work out of it for you 🙂
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Electric mixers are baking lifesavers!!
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YUM
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They were surprisingly moreish. I ate one and thought, “Oh, that’s nice.” And then I closed the box on them. I swear, about one minute later I was having another one. They fit in your mouth in one go!! Dangerous!
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SO dangerous!
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wow – these look amazing! Definitely bookmarking this recipe! Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you! I hope they turn out well for you 🙂
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Omg! I love those types of cookies! Thanks for sharing it!
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That’s great 🙂 If you get a chance to give them a try, I hope they turn out well for you!
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I hope so too!
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So pretty x
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Thank you. It was lovely to make something with my son 🙂
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🙂
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These are actually really popular down here in Argentina (they call them ‘pepas’). Yours look delicious!
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That’s great 🙂 I bet there’s a dulce de leche version (and if there isn’t, that’s a good idea!).
Thank you 🙂
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It’s not the traditional recipe, but I’ve seen the combination before. Adding chocolate to the dough is also delicious (or even peanut butter as a filling). I think I still prefer the original version with jam though.
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Ooh, I’ve been looking for a simple biscuit recipe to make with the kids, and this may well be it!
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You may have to encourage them to “press” their thumbs into the dough rather than “jab with full force” (which was my son’s approach!). But he certainly enjoyed the rolling and “jabbing” and only tried to eat the raw dough once… progress! 🙂
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Oh perfect thing, glad I found your blog 🙂 you can check out mine if you like as well https://beautyandbrains5.wordpress.com/
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I’m glad 🙂 I hope they turn out well for you!
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Yup, I def need to get in the kitchen more to cook lol
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