Baking Challenge – February

Before I left the UK my sister gave me a Great British Bake Off calendar, each month has a different recipe on it and I decided to do each one.

January’s was an Olive Loaf and I despise olives so I skipped that and made rosemary bread instead. I would have blogged about it but starting off on a bum note seemed silly and I was glum in January.

February’s recipe was Raspberry Love Heart Biscuits. For my American readers a biscuit is a cookie in American English, in British Proper English a biscuit is a cookie when it has chocolate chips in it. I’m still yet to try an American biscuit so I don’t know what the comparison is, I’m thinking it might be like a scone.

For the recipe you will need a food processor, that’s the one with the blades because you have to crush the almonds. If you don’t have one put the almonds in a bag, seal, and smash with a rolling pin.

You’ll also need two cookie cookers (I call them that not because I am becoming american but because I enjoy alliterations ask Charlie the Chihuahua or Percy the Pug if you don’t believe me), one needs to fit inside the other to make a hole so you can see a lovely jammy centre. I used hearts because it’s valentines day but any shape would do.

The almonds make the mixture extra oily and it is really tempting to use loads of flour during the rolling out process. I beg and advise you to resist this urge as it will end in very dry biscuits. If you have a marble counter top that will help, if you don’t then a glass cutting board will be your friend – cut the dough into four so you don’t go bigger than the cutting board. You’ll also benefit from the use of a thin metal fish slice or American ‘spatula’.

The Recipe

Ingredients for the biscuit
100g unblanched almonds
200g plain flour
A good pinch of salt
80g Icing sugar (that’s powdered sugar in America)
125g unsalted butter chopped
3 large free range egg yolks (how I miss free range eggs!)

Ingredients for the filling
200g raspberries
2 tsp cornflour (that’s cornmeal in America)
3 tbsp caster sugar

Method
In a food processor put the flour, salt and almonds. Pulse until the almonds are crushed.
Add the icing sugar and pulse to mix.
Add the butter and pulse until the mixture looks like sand – this won’t take too long.
Add the egg yolks and pulse until it forms a dough. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and pop in the fridge for 15 minutes, 30-40 if you live in California and it’s bloody hot. Again.
Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit or Gas Mark 4.
Lightly flour a counter top and roll the mixture out until it is the thickness of a pound coin, which is maybe like two nickles stacked atop one another.
The recipe makes 12 x 8cm biscuits so cut out 24 of your larger shape cutters then cut the smaller shape out of 12, giving you 12 bottoms and 12 tops. Place on a baking sheet and bake for about 10-12 minutes until they are a very light golden brown.
Once cooked leave to cool on the tray for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling wrack.

Now it’s time to make the jam!!

Wash the raspberries and and place in a saucepan with the sugar and cornflour. Stir over a medium heat and watch the raspberries turn to mulch.
Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes.
Allow to cool.1

Once the biscuits and the jam have both cooled spread the jam over a base biscuit the squish on a top biscuit. You’ll notice the jam pushed up through the centre hole so spread more out to the sides before the squishing commences.

Mary Berry recommends serving with cream, extra raspberries and a sprinkle of icing sugar and who am I to argue with her?!

We also had tea with ours, we invited our friends around for a late valentines afternoon tea session. Everyone marveled at how English I am and I sat feeling very superior and smug. That’s a bit of a joke, a little of my British sarcasm leaking through onto the page, please don’t send me hate telling me that if I love England so much I should go home. It’s not that I’m worried I’ll lose in a battle of the wits, I just can’t be arsed with that right now because I have a cat to play with.