Christmas Raspberry Jolly Jammers

Raspberry Jam

Blend the raspberries to form a smooth puree. Place the puree into a saucepan and bring to the boil for 10 minutes.

Mix the pectin and sugar together and then whisk into the puree. Bring back up to the boil for a further 10 minutes until thickened.

Add the lemon juice and boil for a further 1 minute. Set aside until ready to use.

Biscuits

Pre-heat the oven to 170 ºC and line a baking sheet with baking paper.

Cream the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolk and the vanilla pod, scraping down the sides.
Slowly add the flour and mix in well using a paddle attachment. When the dough comes together take it out and divide it into two halves. Clingwrap and refrigerate for an hour.

When ready to bake, remove one ball of dough from the fridge and place it onto a floured surface. Roll it out to 2 mm thick. Using Christmas cutters, cut out as many biscuits as you can. Lightly knead the trimmings together and roll them out again. Once the shapes have all been cut out, carefully lift and place the biscuits on a baking sheet using a flour dusted pallet knife. Make sure you keep them slightly apart as they will spread slightly when baking. Bake until firm and just golden, about 20 minutes.

Repeat this process with the second ball of dough. With the second set of biscuits, use a small object, could be a metal piping nozzle, a very small cookie cutter or a use a knife, to cut out a small circle/shape in the dough so that the jam will be able to show through. Bake until firm and just golden, about 20 minutes.

Remove the biscuits from the oven and place them on a cooling rack to cool completely – be careful when you take them off the baking tray as they are fragile and can crack.

Once completely cooled, place a small teaspoon of jam onto the centre of each biscuit that doesn’t have the shape cut out. Then sandwich all the biscuits together with the remaining cut out tops. Dust very lightly with icing sugar and serve.