Lemon Curd Cookies

I was leafing through my copy of Dan Lepard's Short & Sweet, when my eye caught: lemon curd cookies......with my own home made lemon curd waiting to be used I thought I would give this a try.

I planned to make this recipe in stages, making up the main cookie dough during a brief spell when I came home for lunch, then finishing them off later that day, ready to have when hubby arrived home or for a sort of sweetmeat in the place of dessert! 

It is Sunday now and we have had a couple or so each day and they are still really fresh.  They are really very different from any other biscuits I have tasted before. 

The biscuit is crisp at the edges and underneath, soft and chewy in the middle, and the lemony tang reminds me of lemon meringue pie.  Sadly Lemon Meringue pie is best the day it is made, but these biscuits last a few days....so, great for a lasting lemony fix. This will become a favourite to be baked many times. 

One of my favourite biscuits when I was little were lemon puffs, they were oblong with flaky biscuits and lemon filling.  They seem to be round they days, so I'm not even sure if the lemon puffs of my youth are still around.

I found it impossible to get the cookie dough to stick together, even though I had left the butter to soften really well during the morning in the sunny conservatory....then I thought if I made ten biscuits they would be far too big, and there were was really too much topping to use up with only the one teaspoon on each disc of dough...

My answer to the dough problem was to add egg.  This allowed the dough to stick together well and it was easy to wrap it into a sausage shape to chill in the fridge for a couple of hours or so.  I cut the dough into 1 cm thick disks rather than the 2 cm disk, and 20 biscuits used up the topping.

Topping
50g rolled oats
50ml double cream
100g lemon curd

Combine the topping ingredients and put back in the fridge for use later

For the dough
1egg
100g butter softened, I used delamere goat's butter rather than the unsalted butter asked for
100g golden caster sugar
finely grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
150g plain flour
2 tbps ground rice

The butter and sugar is creamed together well with the zest until light and fluffy.   Incorporate the flour and ground rice with a fork, add sufficient egg to bind to a stiff dough.  Roll the dough on a piece of clingfilm, then roll the clingfilm around the sausage of dough, massage into a long cylinder about 5 cm diameter.  Twist the ends, and tamper the ends on the work surface to 'square' off .  Put the dough into the fridge.

Preheat the oven to gas Mark 4, 180C, just before cutting the dough.

When firm, unwrap the sausage shaped dough, and cut with a sharp knife.  Make sure the round shape is retained - if necessary use a knife to push the dough into shape. 

Place well apart on trays covered with baking parchment, and carefully place a spoonful of the topping mixture on each biscuit, and spread carefully to near to the edges.  Place the tins in the oven, and watch carefully, swapping the position of the tins half way during baking.

They are ready when they are a nice golden colour.  Start checking after 20 minutes, mine took 30 minutes to be just right.  They will still be soft, so wait a few minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.   They keep well for a few days in a sealed container.