Jam Drops

Ingredients

125g Butter
1 ½ cups caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
½ tsp vanilla essence
2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
½ cup white sugar
Jam or preserves of your choice -approx ½ cup. (See note)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line sheet pans with either non-stick baking paper or silicon mats
2. Cream 125g butter with 1 ½ cups caster sugar
3. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat until well combined
4. Add flour and mix in by hand until a fairly stiff dough forms and all the flour is well incorporated
5. Roll mixture into balls approximately 2cm in diameter. Roll balls in white sugar.
6. Place balls on pan, leaving space between them for the biscuits to expand.
7. Press a small indent – about one third the depth of the ball – with your finger
8. Spoon a small amount (approx ¼ tsp) of jam into each indent
9. (OPTIONAL STEP) Place tray of prepared dough balls into the freezer for 30mins or refrigerator for 2 hours. This step stops the dough balls expanding. You end up with a more domed shaped cookie instead of a flat crisp disk-shaped biscuit. I prefer the disks so I never refrigerate my dough balls
10. Place trays in oven and bake for 10-15mins or until golden
11. Let biscuits cool on the tray for approx. 5-10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely before eating.

Be warned! If you can’t resist the lure of freshly baked, still warm from the oven bikkies and choose not to wait before tasting, the jam is like lava! Hot, melty and will burn the hell out of your mouth. Sweet, oozy, delicious lava but definitely not worth scorching off your tastebuds or blistering the roof of your mouth.

 

A word on Jam: As the base of these bikkies is simply flavoured, you can get creative with the fillings. I’ve tried just about every jam, preserve and marmalade commercially available, and a few specialty jams I’ve made or found at market stalls. They all have turned out beautifully. My personal favourite variation is adding a small sprinkle of powdered ginger to the dough and filling with marmalade. YUM! My kids prefer berry jams like strawberry or blackberry. Dad likes his with fig or apricot jam. My husband loves raspberry jam. Low sugar jams work just as well as standard recipes. I usually do a few different flavours in each batch, depending on what jams I have on hand. Experiment and let me know the results!