Giant pain in the neck jam cookie

I'll say upfront that this giant jam cookie is delicious. And also that the biscuit dough is easy to whiz up in the food processor. But, other than that, it's just a big pain in the neck to make. 

I think the problem stems mainly from the fact that, when it comes to roll out the biscuit dough, it goes from fridge cold to a warm glue-like substance in the blink of an eye. Although I also have to mention the other significant challenge in this recipe, which is that the instructions have multiple descriptions of inverting dough onto trays and then re-inverting on to other trays and so on. Eventually I lost sense of whether we were left to bake two rounds of dough or two trays stuck together. 

This is not the recipe for the impatient, intolerant and generally irritable baker, but it will definitely suit those bakers who like nothing better than fiddling around with decorating biscuits or little cakes. And good luck to them.

For the most part I ignored the instructions and just tried to cut out two biscuit dough rounds and stick them together. Unfortunately the extremely sticky dough made it a less straightforward enterprise than I had hoped. The 'round' pictured below stuck unmercifully to the bowl I used to cut out the shape. Even a couple of sojourns in the freezer couldn't loosen the dough from its death grip on the bowl edge and eventually I had to scrape it off and stick it back together. 

I was a bit cannier when cutting out the second round and left the gladwrap on the top of the dough when I cut the shape. 

I could not have been more surprised when, after many trips to and from the freezer, I managed to get the two rounds stuck together and the little star shapes cut out and stuck on in the right place.

The biscuit dough was a very simple mix and not very sweet. I wasn't sure how it would taste but combined with the reduced berry jam it was just like a little jam tart (a sweet pastry with a jam filling). It's a really great combination of flavours and I'm wondering if you could make this into little tarts. It might be easier than struggling with the rounds. I was a bit impressed with the final product though... and that, my fellow bakers, is how you get sucked in.

Next week the Alpha Bakers are making the Araxi Lemon Cream Tart.

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