These traditional biscuits are crunchy, buttery and are a melt-in-the-mouth tasty experience. Perfect for celebrations and special spreads such as weddings, Christmas, Hogmanay/New Years Eve, parties, buffets, afternoon tea, and picnics. Or simply enjoy as a treat with your afternoon coffee or tea. Or for supper with a chilled glass of plant-milk.
Baking tray (also a sheet of baking parchment if not a non-stick tray)
Circle biscuit cutter, I used a 3 inch cutter but depending on the size of biscuit a smaller or larger cutter can be used.
Ingredients
For the shortbread biscuits:
340gramsself-raising floursieved, or plain/all-purpose flour plus 2 teaspoons of baking powder
230gramsplant-based margarineor vegan butter.
115gramsicing sugarpowdered sugar.
2teaspoonsvanilla essence
Decorating and assembling:
115gramsicing sugar sieved. Plus 1-2 tablespoons of water.
5wholeglace (candied) cherrieshalved, or 9 individual jelly tots if just using sweets. Use a mix or cherries or sweets for variation. Any vegan sweet or even dried fruit can be used.
9teaspoons jamyour choice such as strawberry, raspberry, blackberry jam, or fruit jelly (US)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 140 Fan/ 325 Fahrenheit/160 Celsius/Gas 3.
Prepare a baking tray with some parchment paper. If your tray is non-stick you may not need the paper.
Mix the vegan margarine and icing sugar together until nice and creamy.
Whip in the vanilla essence until incorporated well.
Add the flour and mix to form a dough.
Work the dough into a smooth ball. You may have to flour your hands if the dough is a little sticky.
On a floured surface, roll out the dough to roughly ¼ an inch thick. Stamp out biscuit rounds and lay apart on baking tray.
Bake for about 25 -30 minutes until starting to lightly golden.Baking time depends on your oven. I usually bake these biscuits for 25 minutes with a fan oven.The biscuits will harden up as they cool.
Leave biscuits on the tray for about 10 minutes before placing on a wire rack to finishing cooling. Or simply just leave on the tin to cool.
If using as vegan shortbread biscuits dip each biscuit top into a little bowl of caster or granulated sugar while still warm.
Decoration:
Mix the sieved icing with a teaspoon of water. Add a few more drops of water at a time until the icing is a thick but easily spreadable consistency.Don't add too much water to the icing at the beginning as it can easily become too runny and then require more icing sugar to be added to thicken it up.
When biscuits are cool spread about a teaspoon of jam onto the inside of one biscuit. Add a little dollop of icing to another biscuit and smooth out into a circular shape.Place this biscuit on top of the jammed biscuit.Finish with a halved glace cherry or jelly tot.Continue with the rest of the biscuits.
Biscuits are ready after the icing has set.For faster setting of the icing place the finished biscuits in the refrigerator.
Notes
Nutritional information is provided for guidance only and is not a strict calculation as ingredients vary.
Nutrition data is for two biscuits filled with jam and icing topping.