Marmalade Ginger Cream Cookies

I love sandwich cookies. My sister states that they are useless but I strongly disagree. Instead of taking one cookie, you get two at once. It gives you a cheeky chance to eat far more cookies than it looks like plus you get the bonus of a silky sweet filling the middle. What’s not to love?I recently made some disappointing ginger cookies using a sub-standard recipe. They turned out strangely smooth and powdery, lacking in flavour. But I hate it when something goes wrong so was determined to improve on the situation. Thankfully, these cookies provided the perfect solution. They’re chewy and textured from the oats and chunky marmalade, softened only slightly from the creamy filling speckled with stem ginger. A proper mouthful, a proper cookie, properly delicious. If I were to make these again, I would further enhance their chunky, chewy goodness – adding sultanas or coconut. However they were scrumptious as they were, and the absence of those other flavours let the ginger shine through. The buttercream was unusual to me, as it had cream added to the regular butter and icing sugar. This definitely showed in the end result and was good for added silky smoothness to finish off all that crunch of cookie. I love stem ginger, and the spiciness of the ginger chunks in the icing were perfect sparks of flavour. The final good thing about these cookies – a totally simple recipe. Enjoy!

Marmalade and Ginger Cream Cookies, from Sainsbury’s Magazine

Makes about 14

Ingredients: 50g soft unsalted butter
50g caster sugar
50g light brown soft sugar
finely grated zest of one orange
1 large egg yolk
50g thick-cut marmalade
50g plain flour
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
150g rolled oats
For the ginger cream filling: 250g icing sugar, sifted
75ml double cream
50g soft unsalted butter
75g stem ginger in syrup, drained and shredded

1. Preheat the oven to 170’C/fan 150’C, gas 3. Beat the butter, caster sugar, brown sugar, orange zest and egg yolk until smooth then beat in the marmalade. Mix in the flour and bicarbonate of soda, then stir in the oats.

2. Place rounded teaspoon-sized balls of dough onto three lined baking sheets, spaced 5cm apart, then flatten slightly. Bake for 12-15minutes until just coloured at the edges. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack until cold.

3. Beat the icing sugar, cream and butter until smooth then stir in the stem ginger. With a knife, spread a generous amount on the base of a biscuit then stick the bottom half of another biscuit to form a sandwich. Repeat with all biscuits.