Creamy Shortcake Sandwiches

I love the days when my children have friends over.  It gives me an excuse to bake and my children always love it when I'm experimenting with new recipes.  Quite often this is around early evening, so staying up a little late in order to wait for things to cool down for the taste test is a real treat.  

I had some double cream left over in the fridge from a meal a few days back and not liking waste, it had to be used.  The result is a beautiful creamy, but slightly crumbly biscuit base, layered together with a rich sweet icing filling.

Some tips before you start: 

Be careful when you cool them.  Loosen them on the sheet with a palette knife, but don't attempt to put them on a cooling rack - they'll crumble.  Wait until they're quite cool and be careful handling them.  Of course, if you have a couple of casualties like I did, there is usually somebody not too far away hoping this will happen so they can help get rid of the evidence!

I used double the ingredients listed here for the icing as I like them to be really full for the children.  What child doesn't love it when they bite into something and the filling oozes out the side?  If I was making these for adults, I'd keep the icing amounts stated in the recipe.

Creamy Shortcake Sandwiches

Biscuit
1 cup butter (softened)
1/3 cup double cream
2 cups plain flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar

Icing
1/4 cup butter, (softened)
3/4 cup sifted icing sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract

1.  Biscuits: Mix flour and butter together thoroughly (do not add sugar at this point).  Stir in the cream, mix well and chill in fridge for 1 hour.  The mix will seem like a stiff cake mix at this point.  Don't worry.  It will solidify slightly when it's chilled. 

2.  Preheat oven to 375F / 190C / Gas 5.

3.  Flour the surface really well, and your hands.  The dough is extremely sticky, but will form a lovely soft ball when you bring it together.  Roll it out to about 3mm thick, then cut into 1½" rounds.  (Or you could use hearts, stars etc).

4.  Put sugar on a piece of paper, then coat both sides of the biscuit in the sugar.  I used a palette knife to lift and flip them as they're incredibly pliable.  They won't stay perfectly round, so don't worry.

5.  Lay them on an ungreased baking sheet (no need to grease it as the ratio of butter in the mix will be enough to form a non-stick layer).  Prick with a fork and then bake for 7-9 minutes (shorten or lengthen the time if you have used a different sized cutter).  Leave to cool.

6.  Filling:  Blend all ingredients together and sandwich two biscuits together.

Rolo Bombs

According to my kids these are the best cookies I've ever made.  I've experimented with a lot of recipes, but these really hit the chocolate spot.  The recipe is simple to follow and a great one to do with the kids as they can play around with the dough and have fun hiding the sweets inside.

My children were up past bedtime last night making these as they were so much fun - and of course, they had to stay up just a little bit longer for the taste test.

The Rolo in the middle melts and creates a pocket of caramel, which oozes out of the centre of the cookie.  When they cool, the filling is chewy like toffee, but the lovely thing about these is you can put them in the microwave for a few seconds to warm up and melt again, without ruining the taste or texture.

In fact, the dough was so nice my eldest daughter took an uncooked ball with a Rolo inside in her lunch box today in place of her usual chocolate bar!

Rolo Bombs

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar
1 cup brown sugar (any brown sugar will do)
2 eggs
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (if you don't have this, omit and use self-raising flour instead of the plain)
Seeds from 1 vanilla pod (or 2 tsp vanilla extract - don't use essence - the quality of flavour is not there)
2½ cups plain flour
2 tubes Rolos

Cream the butter with the sugars, then mix everything else in, except the Rolos.  That bit comes later.  Once you've made the mix, it will look like crumbs and will be quite bitty and grainy, but once it comes together in your hands, the warmth releases the oils and it binds really well. 

When they're cooked, leave them on the baking sheet for at least five minutes as the centres are very gooey and will drop out the bottom otherwise.

Mix dough into a golf ball

Flatten, then place Rolo in centre

Roll back into a ball

Roll in extra sugar

Bake at Gas Mark 4 for 10 minutes




When cooled - EAT and ENJOY!!!!