Some of our lovely friends moved house recently so I thought when we visited their new pad we would take a yummy gift with us and I decided on Empire Biscuits.
Traditionally they were based on a German biscuit called the Linzer Biscuit, but they were renamed Empire Biscuits during WWI. They are deliciously sweet and simple biscuits and matched the tin I'd bought for them really well! I made them in two sizes so the little ones could dig in too and they made 12 sandwiched biscuits, 6 bigger and 6 smaller ones (24 individual biscuits).
Empire Biscuits
12oz/300g plain flour,
8oz/200g Stork,
4oz/100g castor sugar,
Several tablespoons of raspberry jam,
1/2 mug icing sugar,
12 halved glace cherries.
1. Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5.
2. Mix together the plain flour, Stork and castor sugar until it forms a dough. It is quite a short dough so dust your worktop/board well with some more flour.
3. Roll out/squash out with your hands until the dough is about 1 1/2cm thick. Cut out and place the biscuits onto a greased baking tray.
4. Bake for 12-15 minutes until lightly golden brown. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
5. When cool, mix together the icing sugar with a small amount of boiling water to get a thick glace icing. Spread on the top of half of the biscuits and top with halved glace cherries.
6. Spread raspberry jam onto the other half of the biscuits and sandwich neatly together.
Enjoy!
xxx