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