Easter Empire Biscuits / German Biscuits

Empire biscuits, or German biscuits as I've always known them, are my absolute favourite of all home baked biscuits. Two delicious shortbread biscuits sandwiched together with jam, and topped with a large dollop of icing sugar. What's not to love?

While these biscuits are traditionally round, we decided to give them an Easter twist, and use some cute little Easter cookie cutters.

They are really easy to make, perfect if you are looking for a last minute Easter baking idea.

 Ingredients
225g butter, softened ( I used a buttery spread and they were fine)
100g Caster Sugar
250g Plain flour, sifted
small bowl of jam
icing sugar
water/ milk

Method
Pre heat oven to 180c, then line a large baking tray with baking/ greaseproof paper.
Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Gradually add in the flour and give a good mix until all combined.
You should have a relatively firm dough. Form the dough in to a ball and turn on to a lightly floured surface.
Roll out with a floured rolling pin to a thickness of about 5mm

Now you are ready to start having fun with the cookie cutters. The kids loved this part. The dough felt a little bit like play-doh, so Caitlin had fun making a little character.
Don't forget to make an even number of each 'design', as you will be sandwiching them together later.


Pop the biscuits on to the prepared tray and bake in the oven for about 8-10 minutes. Don't worry if they feel a little soft when you take them out, they will harden slightly as they cool.
Leave on tray for a few minutes then transfer to a wire rack to fully cool.


Once the biscuits are cool, it's time to sandwich them together and decorate them.
Put some jam in to a bowl. How much you use is up to you, it all depends how jammy you like it! Most recipes ask for raspberry jam but we used strawberry as it was all we had.
I recommend you heat the jam for about 10 seconds in the microwave, as it makes it easier to spread, but you don't have to do this.

 Using a tea spoon, spread a layer of jam over a biscuit, then place another biscuit of the same shape on top.


 To make the icing simply follow the instructions on your icing sugar packet to make a simple water icing. If you like to live dangerously, and choose to wing it like I did, it's basically a bowl of icing sugar, and add a few drops of water until you have a nice gloopy icing.

Simply spread this on top of your sandwiched biscuits and top with decorations of your choice. We used pink sugar and popping candy, but if you are feeling fancy you could get Easter themed toppers or sweets from your local supermarket.


And there you have it, a delicious Easter Empire biscuit. They taste delightful, and if you can manage to leave them for 24 hours they taste even better.


 I hope you enjoy making and eating these with your kids this easter.