Jam Drops with Morello Cherry and Cognac Preserve

Recipe From What's For Lunch, Honey?

Ingredients

130g butter, softened

110g sugar

1 vanilla bean, inner seeds scraped out

1 large egg

25g cornflour

185g all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Approx. 100g jam or preserve of choice (I used two: Morello cherry and cognac preserve from Fortnum and Mason’s and a raspberry jam)

Icing sugar, for dusting

Method

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
Using an electric mixer or electric hand-beaters, beat butter, sugar and vanilla until pale, thick and creamy. Add the egg and continue beating until incorporated into the cookie batter.
Sift in flour, cornflour and baking powder and with a wooden spoon stir the batter until combined. The consistency of the dough will be very soft. Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes.
Using a teaspoon portion heaped teaspoons of the mixture and roll into balls. Arrange on a lined baking tray. Make a deep hole in the centre of each ball. Use the end of the wooden spoon handle. Dip it in flour before making each indentation to keep the dough from sticking on the end.
Fill each hole with about 1/2 teaspoon of jam/preserve. Make sure not to overfill the indentations or the jam will overflow during baking.
Bake for about 20 minutes, until the cookies are pale golden. Swap the trays around about halfway through the baking time so that the cookies bake evenly. Allow to cool on trays or a wire rack. Be careful as the jam/preserve will be extremely hot.
Allow cookies to cool completely, dust with icing sugar then store in an airtight container.

Yields 25 cookies

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