Jammie Dodgers & Biscuit Tins
Biscuits are wonderful from the spicy speculoo to the melt-in-the-mouth Cherry Bakewell biscuit. I’ll also never say no to gaudy pink wafer. For many making biscuits was one of the first things they baked as a child. In my classes children love making biscuits. I think it’s the tactile nature of them or the fact they are let loose on my eclectic collection of biscuit cutters. Handbag shaped Easter biscuit anyone?
All good biscuits need a tin. I’ve been a bit slow on the uptake here in discovering Marks & Spencer’s range of biscuit tins. I first heard about this untapped source for tins last week on Twitter. For £5 you get a fabulous tin that is full of biscuits. M&S bring out differently designed tins for different occasions. For Will & Kate’s wedding they brought out a Rob Ryan inspired tin and 2012’s summer of various events is no exception. I have a particular love for their union jack tin with various British landmarks in a 1950’s graphic style.
It turns out I’m not the only one who is a fan of their tins. Holly has been collecting them since Christmas 2010, Janet’s mum has a rarer white mouse tin, Penny likes to give them as gifts and Shelly owns the Bourbon biscuit tin I now covert.
The queen of biscuits for me is Jammie Dodgers and I will fight you for jam ring creams. The photo on this post is testament to this claim. We scoffed quite a few of the biscuits before remembering we needed to take photos of them. When making party rings last year I froze some of the uncooked biscuits with the plan of making Jammie Dodgers.
Jammy Dodgers
Dough recipe from The Pink Whisk
Makes around 25!
225g butter
225g caster sugar
1 egg, large
1dsp vanilla extract
375g plain flour
approx 7 tsp of raspberry jam
1) Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy then mix in the egg and vanilla. Sift in the flour and mix until you have a well mixed dough.
2) Split the dough in half and place one half between two sheets of baking parchment. Roll out until dough is around 4mm thick. Repeat with the other ball of dough, then chill the dough for 30 minutes.
3) Using a 6cm diameter cutter cut out rounds then using a 1.5cm cutter cut out a hole in the middle or half of the rounds. Place the rings on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment. Place back in the fridge for another 30 minutes. If you wanted to freeze some of the dough, open freeze it at this stage then once they are frozen place in a ziploc bag and cook at a later date.
4) Preheat the oven to 160°c (fan)/180°c then cook the biscuits straight from the fridge for 12-15 minutes until beginning to turn golden brown.
5) Once the biscuits have baked transfer to wire rack and leave to cool completely assembling. You could bake them in advance as long as you keep the cooled biscuits in a Tupperware box to stop them going soggy.
6) Place 1/4 tsp of jam in the centre of a whole biscuit, then top with a ring biscuit. Gently press together. Brew a cup of tea. Dunk. Eat.
Jules
I love the name Jammie Dodgers. Just to say it. They look pretty darn delicious, too. I need to make cookies like this. Sadly my tin isn’t as cute!
It is a fabulous name for a biscuit.
Aah yes. I adore jam ring creams… I eat all round the outside so the last bite is tiny bit of biscuit with lots of jam and cream. Mmmm!
I believe that is the only way to eat them.
They look so dunkable I have huge biscuit envy. Love them. x
Thank you. Can’t beat a good dunkable biscuit.
What perfectly gorgeous biscuits these are! You have a real skill in making them look far more appetising than the well known brand alternatives. I would far rather these as well as one of those tins too! xx
What you can’t see is that the cleverly placed top biscuit is hiding a bite out of one of the bottom biscuits ;)
Did you see the twitter chat on the M&S tins last week?
Someone else has a stack, and another person admitted to throwing the biscuits away just to get the tin!
I think it was the tail end of the conversation that made me go to M&S. I could never throw away biscuits. The shortbread that comes in some of the tins is rather morish.
George would love these! I have never made a jammie dodger and these look like a good option. This will be my next biscuit project :)
It’s a very versatile biscuit dough and I keep precut but uncooked shapes in the freezer then cook them from frozen.
Hope I’m not too late to get the Jubilee one. It looks fab, and I too have never noticed the wonder of M & S biccy tins before!
There is 3 tins. The one I’ve shown above, a traditional style one and a fab pink & gold one with a crown.
Ah Marks and Spencers - they did a jammy dodger tin as I have one! I love tins. I am also very excited about jammy dodgers as know at the moment - I have a post coming up on them that uses them in a recipe and would love to link to this post if that is OK. Dodgers rule!
Of course you may link. I know what the recipe is and it sounds like it’s going to be fab.
You can’t go wrong with a Jammy Dodger! I’ve never made my own but after reading a biscuit edition of Jamie Oliver’s magazine have decided I NEED to make both these and homemade custard creams. Yours look beautifully neat :-)
Mmmm custard creams. The key to keep them neat is to cook from frozen, but cooking from being well chilled also works well.
The M&S tins are beautiful, I understand why people would collect them. Not had a jammie dodger for years but I used to enjoy biting around the edge and then popping the jam centre in last!
mmmm I have a really old tin of my granny’s that I love to fill with cake or biscuits: you can tell it’s old because it has the alphabet on it and the ‘g’ word is golliwog… I’ve had more success with custard creams than jammy dodgers, so will give your recipe a go and see what happens