Yup! These homemade jam-filled sandwich cookies taste as British as their name implies. As I write this, I have two on a plate and a cup of tea beside me! Actually, I’m not sure how a cookie would taste distinctly British, but the cookies are delicious! The little heart cut-outs make them the perfect little cookie that will please everyone just in time for Valentine’s Day!
When searching out a recipe for these delightful British biscuits, one in particular caught my eye. The reason? The photo had a TARDIS in it. Now, anyone who really knows me understands this without any extra explanation, but for those of you who don’t, I am a giant nerd and I’m pretty proud of it. My husband and I love Doctor Who, and Jammie Dodgers have a pretty pivotal place in the preservation of this universe. It just makes sense to have a Jammie Dodger or two on hand in case you ever run into a Dalek. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, that’s ok! It’s a good cookie anyway! Here’s a link to the Baker Upstairs’ original post, or you can scroll down to the bottom of the page! (Hooray for new blog features!)
For my version of Jammie Dodgers, I used a homemade jam. You can totally use any kind of jam you have on hand, be it homemade or store-bought! I won’t judge you. I made my own, because if I didn’t, that would be cheating. To up the stakes a little, and because we’re getting close to Valentine’s Day, I decided to search out a Strawberry Champagne jam. I adapted a recipe from Downton Abbey Cooks. Why did I choose this particular recipe? My goodness. If you don’t know me by now, you will never, ever, ever know me…
If you want to see my adapted Strawberry Prosecco jam, I have my recipe here.
The dough itself is pretty straightforward. It uses confectioner sugar (powdered) instead of granulated sugar, and you cut in cold butter like you do when you are making pastry. I usually use my food processor for doughs like this, but you could use a pastry cutter or the two knife method to cut the butter into the dry ingredients. After you’ve got the coarse crumbs, you add the whole egg, egg yolk, and vanilla to get the dough to come together into what ended up being a pretty wet clump of dough.
Initially, I was surprised at how much vanilla the recipe called for: 3 tsp. That seemed like a lot of vanilla. I almost halved it, but then I realized how little wet ingredients there were in the recipe and just went with it. (Psst! Three teaspoons is one Tablespoon! I’m not sure why it’s not just written like that in the first place!)
After the dough comes together, it needs to chill for 15-30 minutes. For me, this actually ended up more like 6 hours. The dough was pretty stiff when I finally got around to rolling it out, so I pulled it out of the fridge 15 minutes before I planned to work with it.
Sometimes, baking the internet means you have to make some guesses. The original recipe doesn’t quite tell you how many cookies you can expect to get out of the dough. You have to keep in mind that each finished cookie is actually two cookies, so if doughs this size typically make two dozen cookies, I could maybe expect a dozen sandwich cookies out of the deal. Also, the recipe said 12 teaspoons of jam, and I assumed perhaps one teaspoon per cookie. There was also no indication of thickness. I just had to eyeball it from the photo. Here’s where I started to curse my tendency to pick recipes based on a TV show reference, beloved as it may be.
I cut the dough roughly in half and rolled out the first bunch. My round biscuit cutter is slightly bigger than the OP’s, so I figured that I could cut six, re-roll and get another six. I’d bake those, cut another dozen with the heart cut outs out of the other half of the dough, then re-roll the scraps and see if I could get another six tops and bottoms.
It didn’t quite go as planned. When I pulled the first tray out of the oven, the cookies I’d re-rolled from the first batch were really misshapen. There was also a textural difference between the ones I’d cut on the first roll out and the ones from the second time. The second six were puffier and cracked on the bottom. So, note to self, this dough can’t be reworked. Next time, I’ll cut the dough into 4 parts to work with smaller amounts and be more careful to not have as much waste between rounds.
The top row and middle two were the ones re-rolled from scraps. The ones with browner edges were the first set. You can also see how unevenly they baked. It could be the overworked pastry to blame or it could be my oven. I rotated the second tray halfway through just in case. I also think I could have stood to roll the biscuits a bit thinner, too. I’m fairly certain this is the kind of cookie that Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood would expect more of a snap.
The second tray, all cut from one roll out, were much more successful. There were a few shaping issues, which confirmed my theory about the thickness of the cookie being an issue. The thicker ones tended to rise just a bit, and the thinner ones stayed more or less in place.
Once all the cookies cooled, I flipped over the full cookies and spread jam on the bottom, one teaspoon each. I dusted the tops with powdered sugar and squished it on top of the jam. It was supremely satisfying to watch that little heart cut out fill up with the gooey strawberry jam as I pressed the two halves together. Is it weird to get joy from that? Maybe it just means I’m meant to be a baker!
I’ll admit, I did skip the step where you “set” the jam by popping the cookies back in the oven. It would have melted the powdered sugar I’d dusted on them. When you make these, you could do that, or you could not. You don’t have to do the powdered sugar at all… (I just really wanted the cool photo!) I wouldn’t suggest dusting with powdered sugar after you sandwich the two halves, however, because it would ruin that clean cut-out look that is so signature to the Jammie Dodger, but you do you, boo. I’m not going to tell you how to finish your cookies!
In the end, it didn’t really matter much that some of the bottoms weren’t perfectly circular, or that some were slightly darker around the edges, or that some were a bit too thick. Your baking doesn’t have to be perfect to taste amazing, and these sure did taste amazing!! The cookies aren’t too sweet and perfectly highlighted the jam filling! One point of caution, if these happen to make it to the next day, they do get a little softer from the moisture of the jam. Also…not a big concern of mine, but if you’re making them to impress or to imitate the self-destruct button of a TARDIS, they are their best day-of!!
Jammie Dodgers
A light sandwich cookie filled with the delicious, fruity jam of your choice!
Ingredients
- 2 cups + 2 Tbsp All Purpose Flour
- 1 cup confectioner's sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 1 cup + 2 Tbsp Cold Butter, cut into cubes
- 1 Tbsp Vanilla extract
- 1 Large Egg + 1 Egg Yolk
- 12-15 teaspoons of jam
Directions
- Step 1 In a food processor, mix together flour, sugar, and salt. Pulse to mix. Add cubes of butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs
- Step 2 Whisk together egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. Add to the dry mixture and mix until soft dough forms
- Step 3 Wrap dough in plastic and chill for 15-30 minutes
- Step 4 Preheat oven to 350F
- Step 5 Cut dough in half and roll out onto a lightly floured countertop. Using a biscuit cutter (2-2.5″ in diameter) cut into circles. Leave these whole
- Step 6 With the second half of the dough, cut an equal amount of circles that you cut from the first half, but use a small cookie cutter to cut a small shape out of the center of each circle
- Step 7 Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until lightly browned on the bottom
- Step 8 After cooling slightly, spread 1 tsp jam on to the bottom of the cookie without the cut out. Top with the other half
- Step 9 Put cookies back into the oven for 5 minutes to set the jam. Let cool 15-20 minutes before removing from the pan (I skipped this step and they were fine!)
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