I can't believe how little I've baked this summer. This week I felt I was starting to suffer from some sort of baking deprivation so I rectified the situation with these bakewell biscuits. If I had left it any longer my eyelids might have started twitching.
This was an incredibly satisfying bake. Whoever thought to create a bakewell tart/biscuit hybrid should give themselves a pat on the back. These are very tasty biscuits and the recipe yields a surprisingly large batch which is great for greedy people like me who rarely ever just eat one biscuit with their cup of tea. I think I ended up 26 biscuits in total (the batch, not the amount I drank with my tea.)
The recipe (which I slightly adapted) is from a Co-op magazine although I discovered it on one of my favourite baking blogs, The Caked Crusader. I'll be the first to point out that my batch turned out different looking to CC's. My biscuits spread quite a lot in the oven, I'm assuming due to my butter being very soft and my warm hands when I handled the mixture, so they lost their thumbprint indentations. They're still visually attractive and taste delicious, but I don't think they can be considered thumbprint biscuits anymore.
The main changes I made to the recipe were swapping out the vanilla for almond extract and omitting the lemon zest and juice. I wanted the biscuits to be purely about almond and raspberry - no other flavour distractions.
The biscuits have crispy edges, slightly chewy, jammy centres and are packed with almondy goodness. It's like having a bakewell tart without needing to faff about making pastry. Basically, these biscuits make me feel very happy. My vintage embroidered tablecloth also makes me happy, even though it's a sh*t to iron.
Here's hoping it will be less than a month until my next bake.
Bakewell biscuits
175g softened butter (I used a combination of unsalted with slightly salted butter as that's what I had to hand)
175g caster sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 egg
150g ground almonds
150g self raising flour
approx. 1/2 jar good quality raspberry jam
handful of flaked almonds
Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Line some baking sheets with baking parchment - at least 4 baking sheets or 2 reused/rotated.
Beat together the butter, sugar and almond extract for a few minutes until pale. Add the egg and beat well. Add the ground almonds and self raising flour and stir until everything is fully combined.
Take a heaped teaspoonful of the mixture and roll into a ball in the palm of your hands. Place the balls onto the baking sheets, spacing them well apart as they will spread. I had 8 per baking sheet. Push your thumb into the centre of each ball to create a well and spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of jam into the centre. Sprinkle some flaked almonds on top.
Bake in the oven until golden and well spread. Although the original recipe says to bake for 10 minutes, both the Caked Crusader and I found ours took longer at 16-18 minutes. Leave to cool and firm up on the trays before transferring to a wire rack/tin/your mouth.