Chef's Dlight: Jam drop cookies

Recipe by Shane Smith

INGREDIENTS

225g soft butter

140g caster sugar

1 medium egg yolk

dash vanilla essence

280g plain flour

2 tsp cornflour

pinch salt

100g berry jam

150g icing sugar

2tbsp water

Method

· In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and pale in colour.

· Scrape down the sides and add the egg yolk and vanilla. Mix to combine.

· In a separate bowl, sieve the flour, cornflour and salt.

· Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until fully combined leaving a soft dough.

· Divide the dough into 24 balls (you can freeze the dough at this point if you wish to make a smaller batch)

· Roll the dough between your hands to smooth out and place these balls on lined baking trays. Allow some distance between each cookie as they wil spread during cooking.

· Using the back of a teaspoon or a clean thumb, press into the centre of each cookie leaving a large indent. This will hold your jam.

· Make sure there are no cracks as the jam will leak out.

· Place these into the fridge for 40 minutes to firm up or in the freezer for 20 minutes.

· Once rested and cold, spoon some berry jam into the centre of each cookie.

· Place these into a pre heated oven set at 190C/170C Fan/Gas 5 and bake for 11 minutes.

· Once lightly golden brown, remove from the oven and allow to cool. Please take care at this point as the jam is extremely hot.

· When cooling, in a bowl whisk together the icing sugar and water to make a thick paste.

· Using a fork you can drizzle the icing over the cold cookies and serve.