Empire Biscuits
Empire Biscuits, also known as Imperial Biscuits, German Biscuits or Double Shortbread, are sandwich cookies popular in UK, particularly Scotland. It is very similar to a linzer cookie, being formed by sandwiching 2 shortbread cookies together with raspberry jam. Nothing out of the ordinary till here, but then the cookie is glazed with a simple sugar glaze and decorated with half of glace cherry and that brings these cookies out of anonymity. Honestly, these biscuits shook my world the other day when I made them. I wasn’t expecting them to be this delicious, I thought they would turn out good, but nothing special and they blew me away.
And when I took the first bite I had a revelation – these tender, fragrant, sweet and tangy cookies are perfect and taste better than any store bought cookie you might ever have! The shortbread dough is easy to make and an absolute joy to work with, but the surprise comes when you bake it – it’s tender and melts in your mouth with every bite, leaving a rich, buttery taste behind. The cookies are filled with seedless raspberry jam and then topped with a tangy, delicate powdered sugar glaze which I chose to thicken with a touch of melted butter. And their taste made me remember what a lucky girl I am to have found a passion as strong as baking, how fortunate I am to be doing what I love and how happy this makes me.
Empire Biscuits
Ingredients
Biscuits:
- 140 g butter (softened)
- 50 g powdered sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 250 g all-purpose flour
- 50 g cornstarch
- 1 pinch salt
Glaze and filling:
- Seedless raspberry jam as needed
- Candied cherries
- 2 tablespoons butter (melted)
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 200 g powdered sugar
Instructions
Biscuits:
- Combine the butter and sugar in a bowl and mix well with an electric mixer until fluffy and creamy.
- Add the egg and vanilla and mix well.
- Stir in the flour, cornstarch and salt and knead the dough just to bring it together into a ball. Wrap the ball into plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Remove from the fridge and place on a floured working surface.
- Roll the dough into a thin sheet, about 3mm thickness.
- Cut small rounds of dough with a cookie cutter and place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper.
- Bake in the pre-heated oven at 350F – 180C for 10 minutes or until the edges begin to turn golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan.
Glaze:
- Mix the melted butter and lemon juice in a bowl.
- Add the powdered sugar and mix well until the glaze is thick, but still runny. If needed, add more powdred sugar or lemon juice until the consistency is right.
- Sandwich the cookies two by two with 1/2 teaspoon of raspberry jam and place them on a wire rack or baking sheets.
- Drizzle the cookies with the sugar glaze and top with half of a candied cherry.
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