I call these “Melting Moments” because that is what they do in your mouth, but it is also what happens in your mind melts away and your eyes roll up into the back of your head overcome with an explosion of flavour. Plus they are such an easy sweet treat to make, literally all in one bowl with a wooden spoon or hand mixer. They remind me of teatime with my granny, although she made hers with raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream, which is another great option to try. But with so many new and wonderful tropical fruits arriving on British shores during the Golden Age, I’ve made them with passionfruit.
-Rachel Finley
For the biscuits
225g unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
90 icing sugar
2 tablespoons passion fruit juice
185g cornflour
125g white spelt flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pre-heat the oven to 170C/325F
Line a baking sheet with baking parchment
In a mixing bowl, beat the butter, vanilla extract and sugar together until pale and creamy. Add the cornflour, flour and salt and mix to form a dough. Roll the dough into walnut sized balls and place them on the baking sheet. Press them lightly with the back of a fork and freeze for 10-20 minutes. Bake for 15-20 minutes until firm and just starting to brown around the edges. They will still be very pale. Allow to cool on a wire rack.
For the Buttercream
60g unsalted butter
120g icing sugar
2 tablespoons passionfruit pulp
To make the buttercream, beat the butter and icing sugar together until pale and fluffy. Mix in the passionfruit pulp.
And finally
Use two biscuits stuck together with the buttercream for your final product !
Our Tudor inspiration :
Tudor rosewater biscuits from Thomas Dawson”s The Good Huswifes Jewell, 1596
‘To make fine Cakes. Take fine flour and good Damask rosewater. You must have no other liquor but that. Then take sweet butter, two or three yolks of eggs and a good quantitiy of sugar, and a few cloves, and mace, as your cook’s mouth shall serve you , and a little saffron, and a little God’s good about a spoonful.if you put in too much, they shall arise. Cut them in squares like unto trenchers, and prick them well, and let your oven be well swept and lay them upon papers. So set them into the oven. Do not burn them. If they be three or four days old they be the better.
