Cherry shortbread hearts

Cherry shortbread hearts

James Martin's easy biscuits taste as good as they look and make an ideal Valentine's Day gift

Difficulty and servings

Easy

Makes 14-16, depending on cutter

Preparation and cooking times

Preparation time

Prep 15 mins

Cook time

Cook 15 mins

Freezable

Biscuits can be frozen before adding jam

Method

  1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Sift the icing sugar, flour and cornflour together into a bowl. Stir in the ground almonds and butter, then rub in the butter until smooth. Stir in the chopped glacé cherries and almond extract, and bring together to form a dough.
  2. Roll out on a lightly floured surface, then stamp out biscuits using a heartshaped cutter. Keep re-rolling the trimmings until all the dough is used. Carefully transfer the biscuits to baking trays lined with parchment and bake for just 8-10 mins until just pale golden.
  3. Using an upturned bottle top or similar, press gently into the centre of each biscuit to make a round indent. Spoon in a little jam and return to the oven for 2 mins. Remove and cool on a wire rack, before dusting with icing sugar to serve.

PER SERVING

242 kcalories, protein 2.0g, carbohydrate 27.0g, fat 15.0 g, saturated fat 8.0g, fibre 1.0g, sugar 14.0g, salt 0.21 g

Recipe from Good Food magazine, February 2011.

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Latest comments and suggestions

Results 1-20

  • 27 January 2011

    cadaveria rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    they are beautiful! the only thing I would point out is that when kneading the dough the butter becomes soft and warm so when you cut out the cookies they sort of melted in the oven becoming slightly thinner and misshaped and it was more difficult to put the jam in! I think putting the dough in the fridge/freezer for an hour or so to set the butter would solve the problem :)

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  • 02 February 2011

    moonmoth rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    This was such an easy recipie to do, and they taste delicious. I used the ingredients listed and replaced the glace cherries with chocolate chips to make small biscuits for a friend's birthday present. The mixture was very crumbly and i needed to add a tiny splash of milk in order to get it to stick together. The shapes i cut deformed slightly when cooked, so i definitely agree with cadveria to leave them for 1 hour in the fridge before cooking. Also stick to larger shapes.

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  • 10 February 2011

    Amy3 rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    I made the cookies, they tasted fantastic! i spooned the dough onto a surface and rolled it into a 5cm diameter roll, covered it in plastic and placed it into the fridge. Once cool enough to work with I sliced the roll into 1-1.5cm slices and used my cookie cutter on the slices. This went quite fast and the dough didn't get a lot of time to warm up before going into the oven so the cookies were only slightly larger than the original cut-outs. I used chocolate instead of jam and my family loves it! thank you for the top-tips and amazing recipe.

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  • 13 February 2011

    Fiona rated and commented on this recipe

    2 stars

    Didn't work out for me I'm sad to say :( I chilled the dough for 1 hr in the fridge and even tried putting the cutout cookies in the freezer before baking but they still spread and lost their shape. And took longer to bake than stated... Not sure what went wrong - maybe I rolled my dough too thin? Or didn't rub in the butter thoroughly enough in the first place... I have way more luck with cakes than cookies, so think I'll stick to them next time!! Shame cos the dough was delicious!

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  • 13 February 2011

    mother*ship rated and commented on this recipe

    2 stars

    Lovely tasting biscuits ... BUT despite chilling the dough before I rolled it I still ended up with completely spread cookies that no longer looked at all heart shaped :-(

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  • 14 February 2011

    AmandaB commented on this recipe

    Made these over the weekend, found chilling/freezing the cut-out cookies before baking worked better than when I didn't, however, didn't stop them spreading entirely. Ended up using the cutter 1 size up to re-cut cookies when I took them out to put the jam on - this worked really well!

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  • 14 February 2011

    mooingzelda rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    They taste nice but mine also spread out while in the oven, even though I put the dough in the fridge beforehand. Still, you can't go far wrong with the cherry and almond combo...

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  • 14 February 2011

    JodieTennant rated and commented on this recipe

    3 stars

    Lovely tasting cookies- delicious- but again I had trouble with them spreading when cooked- I will definitely try chilling the dough, then rolling thicker and cutting smaller next time.

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  • 14 February 2011

    Kate rated and commented on this recipe

    3 stars

    My cookies spread a little in the oven but were still recognisable as heart shaped and much appreciated in the office today . I added slightly more flour but didn't chill. You do need a good sized cutter otherwise there is no space for the jam .

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  • Binder photo jzn

    14 February 2011

    jzn commented on this recipe

    These tasted delicious but had the same problem as others, the cookies lost their shape and spread, even after chilling the dough in the fridge for an hour. I rolled them out fairly thickly but they still don't look like hearts, still - everyone is enjoying the taste! I don't have much luck with dough but would make them again, maybe just as round shapes. Oh, and I didn't bother with the jam as my heart cutter was fairly small and didn't have space.

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  • Binder photo KPP

    14 February 2011

    KPP rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    Everyone has loved these biscuits so far. I live in the US so can't get glace cherries all the time but used finely chopped dried cranberries, which worked great. The biscuits were still very much heart shaped when cooked and adding the jam was easy.

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  • 14 February 2011

    clarel rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    I followed the recipe and whilst there was some spread they kept their shape and the jam bit was easy. They did need longer in the oven though. Most importantly they are absolutely yummy!!

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  • 15 February 2011

    julie rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    i made yesterday for valentines day, the dough was a bit soft so i added a bit more flour and they were great and tasted yummy and i ended up making 23.

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  • 15 February 2011

    Ellie x rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Made these for my mum, in my rubbish little oven in my tiny uni flat, they came out brilliantly! Its difficult to get the dough the right consistency, completely dependant on the temperature of the butter, I find it easiest to make it too warm, so the mixture is slightly sticky, and to then just pop it in the fridge for ten minutes, and it becomes really easy to work (just make sure that you have a very well floured surface to work on! DELICIOUS!!!

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  • 15 February 2011

    supaluc rated and commented on this recipe

    1 stars

    Well what can i say...what a disaster! I've never seen such a mess....i tried to hold back on the butter and add more flour but ended up with one big spoldge. At least they taste fantastic though, i'm not quite sure what anyone receiving them as a gift might think lol!

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  • 15 February 2011

    supaluc commented on this recipe

    Well what can i say...what a disaster! I've never seen such a mess....i tried to hold back on the butter and add more flour but ended up with one big spoldge. At least they taste fantastic though, i'm not quite sure what anyone receiving them as a gift might think lol!

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  • 15 February 2011

    crothers rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Made these yesterday, did 2 batches, one as the recipe above and the other with chocolate chips instead of cherries. As so many people were saying the shape changed when cooked I cooked one batch stright away and the other I kept in the fridge after cutting out for an hour. Both turned out exactly the same, my shapes were still intact. (don't know how this happened-just luck?) They both tasted fabulous, both batches already gone and orders placed already for another batch!

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  • 09 March 2011

    cant cook wont cook! commented on this recipe

    Very easy to make and dont take much time to do. Thoroughly enjoyed them for Valentines Day and will certainly make them again

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  • 02 April 2011

    skakule commented on this recipe

    The trick with butter based dough is to keep the dough as cold as possible, work with it as quickly as possible and to put the cut out biscuits on a completely cold baking tray (the colder the better) and then straight into the hot oven. They will not spread or get misshapen (or just a little).

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  • 14 April 2011

    Ladylikestocook rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    I read the comments on here before making so I kinda cheated and used a very similar recipe I already had for biscuits that I knew wouldn't spread in the oven and then added the cherries and jam as James does. They were delicious - made them for Valentines day with my daughter for my husband to eat (well we shared them a bit!).

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Difficulty and servings

Easy

Makes 14-16, depending on cutter

Preparation and cooking times

Preparation time

Prep 15 mins

Cook time

Cook 15 mins

Freezable

Biscuits can be frozen before adding jam

Ingredients

  • 100g icing sugar , plus extra for dusting
  • 200g plain flour , plus extra for dusting
  • 50g cornflour
  • 50g ground almonds
  • 250g pack cold butter , cut into cubes
  • 50g glacé cherries , finely chopped
  • ½ tsp almond extract
  • 8 tbsp cherry jam , sieved
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PER SERVING

242 kcalories, protein 2.0g, carbohydrate 27.0g, fat 15.0 g, saturated fat 8.0g, fibre 1.0g, sugar 14.0g, salt 0.21 g

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