This buttery shortbread sandwich is Britain’s answer to the Linzer cookie. Fill with homemade strawberry jam for a beautiful and delicious sweet.
By Michelle McVeigh
One thing Britain rightfully take pride in is our biscuits – nothing beats a British biscuit! When a Brit says “biscuit” we mean a cookie. 
Jammie Dodgers are a national favourite, if your mum bought a pack of Jammie Dodgers with the weekly shop you knew you were in for a treat at lunch time! As a student at university they were my essay fuel – you can’t write a good paper without some classic British biscuit fuel, that would be madness. Jammie Dodgers are shortbread with a raspberry jam filling, and a cute little heart cutout so you could see that delicious sweet treat waiting for you! There are many varieties today, but nothing beats the classic combination.
This is not an exact replica of the beloved biscuit of course, in fact it’s better (gasp!). The shortbread is much softer, so much more buttery and, of course, has that delicious homemade taste you won’t get with a mass produced biscuit. I picked up a few pounds of strawberries from the local market recently and made amazing jam, so it was only right that I used that delicious homemade jam in my homemade jammie dodgers – the classic jam flavour for jammie dodgers is raspberry, but the strawberry works amazingly well. Every part of it is homemade but it’s still incredibly simple – anybody can make it at home. Of course, you’re free to use store bought jam if you’d like – just make sure to use a good quality one, the taste is so important in these cookies!
Find the recipe for the homemade strawberry jam here.
PrintJammie Dodger — The British Linzer
- Yield: 20 cookies 1x
Description
This buttery shortbread sandwich is Britain’s answer to the Linzer cookie. Fill with homemade strawberry jam for a beautiful and delicious sweet.
Ingredients
For the strawberry jam
- Find the link to the recipe above.
For the shortbread
- 250g (8 ounce) unsalted butter, softened
- 120g (4.2 ounces) icing sugar (confectioners/powdered), plus more for dusting surface
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg yolk
- 350g (12.3 ounces) plain flour (all purpose)
- 20g (0.7 ounces) cornflour
- 30g (1 ounce) white sugar
Instructions
- Put the hulled and quartered strawberries in a large saucepan. Add sugar, water and lemon juice and mix to combine.
- Bring to a boil on a high heat, let boil for 5 mins. Reduce to medium low heat and simmer for approx 1 hour, until mixture reaches a temperature of 105C/220F.
- While it’s still hot, pour into warm, sterilized jars – tighten lids and leave to cool overnight.
To make the shortbread
- Beat the butter and icing sugar together using the paddle attachment of your stand mixer or with an electric hand mixer, until fluffy and pale – about 3 minutes. Add vanilla and egg yolk and beat to combine.
- Sift in the flours and mix by hand with a wooden spoon until combined. Chill dough in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 190C/370F and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Lightly dust your worktop with icing sugar and roll out your cookie dough to 3mm thick. Use a fluted 5cm cookie cutter to cut out circles. Use a small round cutter (or heart shaped if you have one) to cut out the centre of half of the cookies – I used the wide end of a piping nozzle to do this. It’s up to you how big you make the hole.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes, until pale golden in colour. Transfer to wire rack to cool, and sprinkle with the white sugar while they’re still warm.
- When cooled, spread 1/2 tbsp of jam on the cookies without a hole, and sandwich with one of the cookies with a cut out. Repeat with all cookies.
Notes
Cut the strawberries as large/small as you’d want your pieces to be in the jam. My strawberries were quite small so quartering was the perfect size for me, personal preference is key here.
The jam recipe will make a lot more than you will need for the cookies, feel free to halve it or you can just keep the rest of the jam – we went through ours very quickly!
I used a 5cm fluted cookie cutter, but you can make these as big or as small as you like – you may need to adjust the baking time if you go much smaller or larger though.
Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days
Jam will keep in sealed, sterilised jars at room temperature for up to 3 months. Longer if you use a canning method or store in the fridge. Store in fridge once opened.
- Category: Dessert, Baking
- Cuisine: British
