Sweetheart Sandwiches

Ingredients

Ingredients:

250g unsalted butter
150g icing sugar
1 tsp Vanilla powder
2 egg yolks
250g plain flour
100g Matthews Maizebite Pastry Flour
100-200g jam
Snow Sugar Sprinkle (optional)

Sweetheart Sandwiches – Jam-Filled Biscuits

I’ve always wondered just how easy it is to make this well-loved biscuit at home and I’m here to tell you, it’s very easy. When they’re homemade they taste even more special (although that comes as no surprise).

These Sweetheart Sandwiches are made from a crisp, buttery biscuit base, similar to shortbread, sandwiched with a layer of something sweet. You can choose whatever filling you love, classic jam, lemon curd, pistachio spread or even chocolate.

I’ve gone for the traditional option, using some delicious homemade jams I’ve collected from friends over the last year. If you’re choosing a jam, a smooth, sticky one will help keep the biscuits neat and even, while something chunkier, like a strawberry jam, for example will make them a little messier to eat and perhaps slightly wonkier, in a very charming, homemade way!

Method:

Make the dough: In a large bowl, beat the butter before adding the sugar, continue to mix until well combined.

Next, add the vanilla, plain flour and egg yolks and mix together, gradually pressing to form a rough ball. Then get your hands in and work the dough until the mix is even and the dough holds together.
Refrigerate: Wrap the dough in cling film or a sandwich bag and place in the fridge for at least one hour.
Preheat and prepare: While the dough chills, prepare several baking sheets with baking paper (or if using the USA nonstick range, there’s no need to line). Towards the end of the chilling time, preheat the oven to 160°C fan.
Roll: Once the dough has chilled, dust a work surface and rolling pin with flour. Roll out the dough to a thickness of 0.5 cm. You may want to dust the top of the dough with flour occasionally to prevent sticking.
Cut: Using your cookie cutters, cut as many circles as you can from that rolling of dough. Then cut a heart out of the centre of half of the rounds so you create the top of the sandwiches.

Transfer each biscuit to the tray as you cut, leaving a 1 cm gap between each biscuit, as they will grow slightly during baking. Keep re-rolling the dough until all biscuits are cut. You may need to bake in several batches depending on your tray and oven size.
Bake and cool: Bake in the preheated oven for 12 minutes. Once baked, let the biscuits cool for 10 minutes on the tray before transferring to a cooling rack.
Construct: Once all the biscuits are cooled, scoop roughly 1tsp of jam onto the solid circle. Spread the jam until it's almost reaching the edges but not quite. Place a heart cut biscuit on the top sandwiching in the jam layer. Here is where you can squish down as much as you like depending on how much jam you want to spread out the sides of the biscuit and up through the heart cut out.
Finish: Sprinkle with a light layer of Snow Sugar (optional)
Enjoy! These will keep well for 1-2 days in an air tight container.