Jam Hearts

 

I found this recipe on a german website and they looked so lovely, I just had to try. They taste divine and look amazing.

Ingredients

for the dough:

300 g flour

200 g butter or margarine

100g icing sugar

1 pack of vanilla sugar ( or, if you have trouble finding that in england, 1 tsp vanilla extract)

2 egg yolks

100 g ground almonds

1/2 tsp cinnamon

the zest of 1/2 a lemon (make sure you use an unwaxed one and wash it properly first!)

for the filling:

a jar of red jam, I used raspberry but the original recipe recommends redcurrant

more icing sugar for dusting

Mix all ingredients for the dough (that is, exclude the jam and the extra icing sugar), then put it in the fridge for 20-30 min to cool. Preheat the oven to 180. 

Roll out the dough on a lighlty floured surface to a thickness of 2-3 mm and cut out the big shapes using a biscuit cutter. Then take a matching small biscuit cutter and make a prettily shaped hole into every second biscuit. I like to keep the little cutouts because they are adorable but you could mash them up and reuse them. Put the biscuits on a tray lined with baking paper.

Bake the biscuits in the middle of the oven for 12-13 minutes. They should come out lighltly golden brown. Let them cool for a few minutes, then put a dollop of jam onto every whole biscuit and stick the one with the hole ontop.Gently push the biscuits together so the jam is pushed up through the holes a little. Be gentle though, I broke a few accidentally. Finally, take a fine strainer and give the biscuits a light coating of icing sugar. I recommend letting them cool down completely before you put them in a box. 

Enjoy :)