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Celebrate 14th February with the whole family this year and get little ones involved with a spot of baking. These tasty shortbread biscuits from Cook School are easy for children to prepare and ideal for any chefs-in-the-making.
Cook School are a not-for-profit organisation that aims to equip young people with the skills, knowledge and confidence to cook delicious, affordable and healthy meals at home. Working with primary and secondary schools across the UK, they’ve hosted in-person and online cook-along classes for more than 150,000 students to date, all featuring straightforward ingredients, equipment and easy-to-follow recipes. If you love what Cook School is doing, please give them a follow on Instagram and sign your local school up for free cookery courses on their website.
“These classic buttery vanilla shortbread biscuits have a heart-shaped cut-out and are sandwiched together with sticky raspberry jam (or whichever flavour you prefer!). Pop a few biscuits in a heart-shaped dish to make a cute gift for loved ones on the pinkest day of the year.” Amanda Grant, co-founder of Cook School.
Makes approx. 12 biscuits (depending on your cutter size)
Equipment:
Scales
Large bowl
Small bowl
Electric or hand whisk
Greaseproof paper
1 x 7cm approx. round fluted cutter (one with a frilly edge), a heart-shaped cutter, or a cup and table knife
2 x baking trays
1 x 3cm approx. heart-shaped or 3cm round cutter
Teaspoon
Ingredients:
225g softened, unsalted butter (make sure you keep the butter out of the fridge, as it needs to be soft)
125g icing sugar, plus a little extra for dusting
½ teaspoon vanilla paste (or vanilla extract)
1 medium free-range egg
300g plain flour
120g strawberry jam
Method:
Put the butter and icing sugar in a large bowl and use an electric or hand whisk to cream them together until they’re pale and fluffy.
Add the vanilla paste (or extract) and whisk again to mix.
Crack the egg into a small bowl and remove any bits of shell. Add the egg to the bowl of creamed butter.
Add the flour to the bowl and whisk again, until you have a soft dough.
Take the dough out of the bowl, wrap it in greaseproof paper and put it into the fridge for at least one hour, until firm.
When you’re ready to bake your biscuits, preheat the oven to 170℃/fan 150℃/gas 3.
Sprinkle a little flour on a work surface and break the dough in half and then into quarters. Roll out one piece of dough until it’s about the same thickness as a pound coin.
Using a cutter, or a cup and a table knife, cut heart shapes or circles out of the dough, then repeat with the remaining pieces.
At the end, scrunch up any remaining dough and roll it out again so you have as little leftover dough as possible.
Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper, and lay the biscuits evenly across them, with a little gap in between. Use a small round or heart-shaped cutter, or a table knife, to cut circles or hearts out of the centre of half of the biscuits. Leave the other half whole.
Bake the biscuits for 10–12 minutes, until pale golden. Remove from the oven and leave them to firm up and cool on the trays.
Once cool, spoon one heaped teaspoon of jam on each of the whole biscuits. Dust the remaining biscuits that have their middles cut out with icing sugar and sit them on top of the jammy biscuits to make sandwiches. Press gently to stick them together but be careful – you don’t want to break the tops.
Cook School tips
If you have any leftover biscuit dough, you can freeze it, wrapped in greaseproof paper, for up to one month, or roll it out to cut out more mini hearts and circles. Bake the mini heart and circle biscuits for about three to four minutes, until light golden.
If your butter is too hard to whisk, pop it in a microwave-safe dish and blast it for just a few seconds on the defrost setting to soften it up.
When children are learning how to break eggs, it helps to crack them into a small bowl so you can pick out any bits of shell before adding them to your recipe.
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