Cream & jam scookies

Here’s yet another experiment that I thought went terribly wrong, but ended up being wonderful. Now I know what the inventors of the tarte tatin must have felt like. These were meant to be cream scones, but instead of sugar I used some neglected jam.* Despite totally collapsing into cookie shapes, they were a marvel of a failure – crunchy on the outside, delightfully cakey in the middle, with a buttery-fruity note to add a little interest. They soften after a while, but if you get them in the still-crunchy window, they are so much better than scones! No extra jam or cream needed either, because these are nice and moist in the middle without too much sweetness (although by all means go ahead and ice them or something).

The added bonus of using jam means you have pre-basically-candied fruit pieces distributed throughout, without the fruit making your scookie fall apart, or making any bits of it soggy or too tart. Using only whipped cream (and no butter), these come together in the time it takes to preheat your oven, and only need 15 minutes in the oven after that. Plus they’re a lot more interesting than plain scones, which, let’s be honest, never get a whole lot of love because they usually taste like baking powder and not much else.

*In case you’re wondering, it was a strawberry rhubarb vanilla orange zest jam. I don’t know how it got neglected either, but there you go.

makes 9 

• 300ml whipping cream
• 1/3 c jam of your choice (just eyeball, as measuring jam in cups is annoying) – don’t use any with added pectin – your jam shouldn’t be jelly-like
• 225g self raising flour, or plain all-purpose flour with 1 Tbs taken out and replaced with baking powder. Don’t use high-gluten/high grade flour for this.
• pinch salt
• optional: vanilla extract, citrus zest, raw sugar for sprinkling. Chopped nuts would also work nicely.

Preheat your oven to 200C (400F). Grease or line with baking paper/reusable baking sheet.

Whip cream and jam (plus optional stuff if using, except if you’re using nuts – add those in with the flour) until they just hold stiffish peaks. Sift over flour and “cut” through with a fork until the flour looks wettened and starts to clump together. You want to be able to *just* make mounds of mixture on the baking sheet, they might look a bit clumpy. Avoid overmixing.

Make 9 same sized clumps (use your fingers later to tidy into tall mounds) spaced over an inch apart on your lined/grease baking tray. Sprinkle raw sugar over and bake for 15 minutes on the top third rack in your oven until the tops are golden. As soon as they are cool, eat! EDIT: Much like scones, they aren’t marvelous the next day, but really very endearing fresh.

Clickalicious

French onion soup, the scorched way

Roasted spicy chickpea salad with minty yogurt dressing

The best gluten-free chocolate chip cookie recipe

Simple, refreshing kaffir limeade

Advertisement