A Raspberry Shortcake by any other name

I do love a good biscuit.

It's also kind of disgusting but true that, sometimes for breakfast, I have two Delta Cream biscuits with my cup of English breakfast. It shows great restraint that I only have two...

The biscuit thing is only on weekdays at work, though, and only if the work biscuit jar has been stocked with 'nice' bikkies, like Delta Creams and Shortbread Creams. On the weekend, it's a piece of toast (with various spreads such as Vegemite or jam) and a soft-boiled egg. Nothing better than a nice hot cuppa while nibbling on some toast and reading the weekend papers. Tabitha cat has recently gotten into the act, stealing my chair and eyeing the toast...

Back to the biscuits - another of my favourites are Raspberry Shortcakes. Having one (or two) of these with a cup of T2 China Jasmine is an after-dinner ritual that I won't be giving up any time soon. I recently spied a recipe for 'Anglesey Cakes' that are just like Raspberry Shortcakes, and this British take on the bikkies is a winner (recipe is from the versatile and useful Baked and Delicious mag). I added a bit more salt than the recipe stated, and this gave a pleasing not-quite-sweet, not-quite-salty flavour that goes well with the sweet raspberry jam.

Raspberry Shortcakes | Anglesey Cakes

makes about 20 filled biscuits

Ingredients

225g (8oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature

125g (4oz) caster sugar

350g (12oz) self-raising flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup raspberry jam

2 tblsp icing sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy and light in colour. Beat in the flour and salt and mix to combine.

2. Bring the dough together to firm a ball. If the dough is very soft, wrap it in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before continuing. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to a thickness og 6mm (1/4inch). Use a 5cm (2inch) cookie cutter to cut out 40 circles. Re-roll any dough offcuts if necessary. Use a smaller cutter, or the end of a piping nozzle, to cut a small circle out of half the circles.

3. Arrange the biscuits on baking trays lined with baking paper, allow some room for the dough to spread. Bake for about 10 minutes until risen and golden. Cool on a wire rack.

4. Before serving, spread raspberry jam on one half of a biscuit and sandwich it together with another biscuit (with a hole). Sprinkle with icing sugar.

recipe adapted from Baked and Delicious

Ingredients, including caster sugar, butter, self-raising flour (I used gluten-free flour) and raspberry jam

This is quite a soft dough (and it was a warmish day), so I found it easiest to roll out only small portions of the dough at a time before cutting.

Lovely unbaked hearts, all in a row

Sandwich the halves together with raspberry jam, or try apricot jam instead.

A dusting of icing sugar completes this tasty biscuit.

That's an Arnott's Raspberry Shortcake ('raspberry flavoured fun') on the left.

Both are good, but homemade is usually better!