Sunday Oct 01, 2006
Serves 6 Preparation time less than 30 mins Cooking time 10 to 30 mins

Ingredients
85g/3oz icing sugar
170g/6oz plain flour
55g/2oz cornflour
30g/1oz ground almonds
255g/9oz butter, cubed
a few drops almond essence
icing sugar, for dusting
jam or fruit curd of your choice, for filling

Method
1. Preheat the oven to
170C/325F/Gas 3 and grease a muffin tray.
2. Sift the sugar, flour and cornflour into a bowl and add the ground almonds. Add the butter and the almond essence and mix in until there are no lumps of butter remaining.
3. Turn the mixture onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly to form a smooth dough. Break off small pieces of dough, roll them into balls just large enough to fill the holes in the muffin tray a third of the way up. Flatten the tops slightly with your fingers.
4. Bake for about 8-12 minutes until they are a light golden colour. Remove from the oven and, using the back of a teaspoon, make an indentation in top of each biscuit. Leave to cool, then tap the biscuits out gently (they are quite fragile when still slightly warm, so handle with care).
5. When the biscuits have cooled, dust the tops of the biscuits with icing sugar and then, using a teaspoon, fill the indentations with your chosen jam or curd filling.

Source: BBC
Author: James Martin