GIANT JAMMIE DODGER

After the success of my first 'supersize' snack I decided to give it another go, this time of course with a different classic tea time treat... I wanted to try something a little more challenging and for me that's baking a dreaded biscuit. At first glance baking biscuits seem pretty easy, but there is so much that can go wrong and they are very unforgiving in the oven and a few seconds can mean the difference between a perfectly baked biscuit and a bitter burnt biscuit. 

I decided it was time I stepped out of my comfort zone and so attempted (and if I must say so myself I think it turned out pretty well) ... A GIANT JAMMIE DODGER.

My first step was to decide how I was going to supersize this jam filled biscuit. I came to the conclusion that all I had to do was bake two large round biscuits and sandwich them with jam (of course making the infamous heart spatter on top).

So I gathered up my ingredients and began to get to work. If your interested and want to try this at home yourself then here's what I did...

INGREDIENTS: 

250g Butter

150g Caster Sugar

1 Egg Yolk

1/2 tsp Vanilla 

300g Plain Flour

A jar of strawberry/raspberry jam

METHOD:

STEP 1:

Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl with a electric whisk (or hand whisk if you haven't got one) until light and fluffy.

STEP 2:

Once done, beat in the egg yolk and vanilla and mix again until combined.

STEP 3:

Finally add your flour and mix until combined, then using your hands gently kneed the dough on a floured surface for 5-10 minutes or until it comes together. (It will start of as a sticky dough but keep working with it and it will come together).

STEP 4: 

Divide the dough into two and wrap each piece in cling film and put in the fridge for 20-30 minutes. 

During this time pre-heat your oven to 180degreesC or gas mark 4. (Also this is the perfect opportunity to get all your washing up done).

STEP 5:

On a lightly floured surface roll out one piece of the cooled dough the about a 1/4 inch thickness and using a template or round board cut a circle out (don't throw away the left over dough, we will need it).

STEP 6:

Using this leftover dough, roll it out again and using a knife cut a splatter design out, (this will become the authentic jammie dodger logo).

STEP 7:

Carefully place the spatter cutout ontop of the circle of dough we cut out earlier, then using a heart shaped cutter or free hand, cut out a heart in the centre of this circle. 

STEP 8:

It's now time to go into the oven, it's very important that you watch this biscuit in the oven as it can very easily go completely wrong at this stage. You want to leave your biscuit in the oven for aprox 15 mins but do keep checking it, and once it's turned a light golden brown quickly,remove it from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack.

STEP 9:

Simply repeat this process for the second piece of dough, but as this is going to be it base we don't need to worry about and fancy splatter designs or hearts, simply cut out a circle of the same size and whack it in the oven for the same time. 

STEP 10:

Once both biscuits have been baked and cooled, it's now time to sandwich them together with our jam. Simply spread a few tablespoons of jam onto the base biscuit and spread evenly oven the entire base, then finally and carefully settle the top onto the jammed base.

For those of you that like to visually watch things, I have also created a little step by step bake-along video tutorial which I hope you enjoy:

So there you have it, my take on a Giant Jammie Dodger! If you are considering having a go at this yourself then please don't forget to tweet me photos of your final product as I would love to see what you come up with.

Have you any supersize snack ideas? Please let me know in the comment section and maybe that might just be my next challenge.

Happy Baking,
Rachel Ward