German Biscuits

German biscuits are a staple in Northern Irish bakeries, along with other such classics as snowballs and coconut fingers and fifteens.

They’re a very important part of my childhood, and whenever we would head to a bakery, my sticky little fingers would reach for this sweet round shortbread biscuit,with jam oozing out the sides and barely-set white icing dolloped in the centre.

As I've said, the classic combination is jam and white icing, so the caramel in half of these isn’t strictly “canon” but I had a little bit of caramel left over from another baking project so I thought I’d mix things up. It was delicious, as adding caramel to things normally is. If I had to choose, I think I have to favour tradition and give my thumbs up to the classic jam-filled ones, mainly because I'm a sucker for nostalgia.

You will note that the icing on top is a little.. slapdash. But that’s the way it is meant to be. A beautifully and finely piped topping of icing is great.. but it’s not quite right for these. So dollop away!

makes approx 10 biscuits

Ingredients

• 185g butter
• 100g caster sugar
• 220g plain flour
• 50g cornflour
• Pinch salt
• A few tsp jam
• A few tsp caramel
• 100g icing sugar
• Sprinkles!

Method

Same method as my shortbread. Cream butter and sugar, stir through flours and salt and work together with your hands until the dough comes together.

Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Towards the end of the chilling time, preheat the oven to 175 degrees celsius.

Roll out the biscuit dough to about 0.5cm thickness and cut out with a medium sized serrated cutter.

Bake in the oven for 12-16 minutes.

Remove and let cool on a wire rack.

Pair similar sized biscuits.

On a quarter, spread over about a tsp of jam and place its paired biscuit on top.

On the other quarter, spread the caramel and place the paired biscuit on top.

Add a tsp or two of water to the icing sugar until a smooth, pourable consistency. You don’t want it to be too runny, but you want it to spread easily.

Dollop the icing on top of the biscuits and let it spread out. Sprinkle some sprinkles on top and you’re done!