Recipe: Chef Shan Smith's perfect Jam drop cookies

INGREDIENTS

(Makes 24 cookies)

225g soft butter

140g caster sugar

One medium egg yolk

Dash vanilla essence

280g plain flour

2tsp cornflour

Pinch salt

100g berry jam

For the icing

150g icing sugar

2tbsp water

METHOD

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and pale in colour.

Scrape down the sides and add the egg yolk and vanilla. Mix to combine.

In a separate bowl, sieve the flour, cornflour and salt.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until fully combined leaving a soft dough.

Divide the dough into 24 balls (you can freeze the dough at this point if you wish to make a smaller batch).

Roll the dough between your hands to smooth out and place these balls on lined baking trays. Allow some distance between each cookie as they wil spread during cooking.

Using the back of a teaspoon or a clean thumb, press into the centre of each cookie leaving a large indent. This will hold your jam.

Make sure there are no cracks as the jam will leak out.

Place these into the fridge for 40 minutes to firm up or in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Once rested and cold, spoon some berry jam into the centre of each cookie.

Place these into a pre heated oven set at 190C/170C Fan/Gas 5 and bake for 11 minutes.

Once lightly golden brown, remove from the oven and allow to cool. Please take care at this point as the jam is extremely hot.

When cooling, in a bowl whisk together the icing sugar and water to make a thick paste.

Using a fork you can drizzle the icing over the cold cookies and serve.

ABOUT THE CHEF

Shane Smith from Lavey can be seen on Today with Maura and Daithí on RTE One.

You can contact him via email: shane@chefshanesmith.ie