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- Nigella’s Easter Egg Biscuits…
Nigella’s Easter Egg Biscuits
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Ingredients
- 150g salted butter, cold and cut into 1 cm dice (or soft if making by hand)
- 90g caster sugar
- 75g ground almonds
- 225g plain flour, plus more for rolling
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 200g apricot jam, to finish
- 30g icing sugar, to finish
Method
Step 1
The easiest way to make the cookies is in the food processor: simply put everything in together and blitz until the contents form a dough around the blade. Be patient: it will happen! If you’re making these by hand, then use soft rather than cold butter, and start off by creaming it with the sugar until you have a light, fluffy mixture. Mix the ground almonds and flour together and set aside for a moment. Just using a fork, gently whisk the egg and vanilla in a little jug, and slowly add to the butter and sugar, beating all the while. Gradually add the dry ingredients, beating until you have a soft dough.
Step 2
In either case, squidge the dough together in your hands, then split evenly into 2 fat discs and wrap airtight before putting in the fridge for 20-30 mins.
Step 3
Preheat your oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4. Get out 1-2 baking sheets and line with baking paper.
Step 4
When the dough feels ready to roll – that’s to say, firm but not too cold – dust your surface lightly with flour and roll one of the discs to a thin, rough circle (2-3 mm thick).
Step 5
Dip a 7.5 cm egg cutter in flour, then cut out the biscuits and transfer them to your lined sheet. You don’t have to have a huge gap between each. Squidge together any remainders of dough, wrap back up, and replace in the fridge. Make sure to count the number of biscuits you’ve cut out, as you’ll need to match it with the tops in the next half of the dough.
Step 6
Cook the biscuits for 9 mins or until only just beginning to turn the lightest gold at the edges. Although they’ll still look very pale and, indeed, feel slightly soft to the touch, rest assured they’ll firm up on cooling. Once baked, transfer the still-delicate cookies gently to a cooling rack.
Step 7
Roll out the next disc and cut out the matching number of egg shapes and, once you have transferred them to your lined baking sheet, cut a small hole in the bottom third of the egg to make a small circle. I use the “wrong” – ie, non-pointy – end of a round 2.5 cm icing nozzle (or similar) for this, dipping it in flour before using, as per the cookie cutters. (Add the remains of this disc of dough to the remains of the first disc, squidging them together in your hands, then form a small patty, and wrap again and put back in the fridge.)
Step 8
Bake this batch, too, for 9 mins, until just cooked but still very pale, then gently transfer them as before to a cooling rack.
Step 9
Use up the small disc of leftover dough to make more cookies in the same way, but do bear in mind you must make equal numbers of tops and bottoms to be able to sandwich them later. The recipe makes around 20 biscuits in total.
Step 10
Once all your biscuits are cooked and cooled you can sandwich them with the apricot jam. Spread 1 tsp jam on the underside of each hole-less biscuit and spread it evenly with a cranked spatula/palette knife for ease, leaving a small, bare circumference around the edge of the biscuits, as the jam will spread once the cookies are pressed together.
Step 11
Generously and fully dust the tops of each hole-punctured biscuit with ½ tsp of icing sugar pressed through a small sieve, then very carefully pick up an icing-sugar-covered biscuit, holding the edges only, and sit it firmly on top of the jam-loaded biscuit, giving you the look of a cross section of egg, with the apricot jam glistening like a yolk against the white. Carry on until all the biscuits are sandwiched. These are best if you eat them on the same day.
Tips or serving suggestions
Allow extra time for chilling and cooling. The recipe makes around 20 biscuits in total.
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