Empire Biscuits recipe

We were very kindly donated this recipe for Empire Biscuits by Naomi Bremner, who wrote a baking column for the Living Orkney magazine. These biscuits are a bit of a classic, with a name that has undergone some changes through history.

The biscuit itself is not too sweet, with the sandwich of jam in the centre and the icing providing an edge of sweetness.

Prior to the Great War, these sweet treasures were given names associated with Germany. Originally known as the ‘Linzer Biscuit’, and later the ‘Deutsch Biscuit’, these names were deemed unpatriotic during wartime, and so they were renamed ‘Empire Biscuits’ instead, after the British Empire. They are also sometimes known as the ‘Belgian Biscuit’, due to being topped in a similar way to a Belgian bun made of pastry.

These are an impeccable accompaniment to tea or coffee, and the biscuit itself is not too sweet, with the sandwich of jam in the centre and the icing providing an edge of sweetness. Usually these come with a glacé cherry on the top, but the recipients of my biscuits aren’t fans of those, so I replaced the cherry with a soft jelly sweet!

This recipe for Empire Biscuits made around 20 in all.

Ingredients:

• 170g / 6oz butter
• 170g / 6oz caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 397g / 14oz plain flour
• Raspberry jam
• 114g / 4oz icing sugar
• 1 tbsp water
• Jelly sweets or glacé cherries

Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 200° C / 180° C in a fan oven / gas mark 6.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl. We used an electric whisk to do this quickly. Then beat the eggs and add them in. Follow that by stirring in the flour.

3. Knead the mixture together (it’ll be a little bit sticky) and then roll out flat on a floured surface till the dough is about 5mm thick.

4. Cut the dough into rounds with a medium-sized cutter (ours was about 7cm in diameter). Then place the biscuits on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

5. Bake for 8-10 minutes. The biscuits will not change colour much, so remove them from the oven when you see some becoming lightly tanned around the edges. Leave the biscuits to cool completely.

6. Then sandwich pairs of the biscuits together with a thin layer of raspberry jam. If the layer is too thick it will be less sticky so it’s okay to be stingy here!
7. Beat the icing sugar and water together in a bowl until the mixture is smooth. Spread the icing on the top of the Empire Biscuits. As the icing is quite thick, we found using a knife and spreading the icing as you would butter a slice of bread worked – turning the biscuit as you spread the icing helps too!

8. Top with a Jelly sweet or a piece of glacé cherry. Leave the Empire Biscuits to set – it shouldn’t take long.
9. Put the kettle on and enjoy with some of your loveliest friends!

By Magnus Dixon
Orkney and Shetland enthusiast, family man, loves walks, likes animals, terrible at sports, dire taste in music, adores audiobooks and films, eats a little too much for his own good.

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