Gloverly Cupcakes

Last week I saw an email about a cake sale in the office today for Comic Relief so sent an email to say I’d bake something to sell. I then discovered there was a bake off too so I thought if I was going to bake something to sell I might as well enter it into the competition. There were various categories to enter so I decided I would make cupcakes and enter the cupcake and showstopper categories and then if I had time I would bake something for the biscuit category. I managed to finish work slightly early so I had plenty of time while the cupcakes were cooling. Choosing which biscuits to make was pretty easy – for Red Nose Day there’s only one type of biscuit which is suitable… Red Nose Jammy Bodgers!

Do you want to bake something funny for money?

I’ve made these a few times before – a couple of times for Red Nose Day/Comic Relief and also heart-shaped ones for Valentines Day. The recipe I have used in the past was from the Cookie and Biscuit Bible but this time I decided to use a different recipe, well, actually a mixture of recipes. I used one batch of citrus biscuit recipe I used when I made Halloween biscuits (replacing the citrus zest with vanilla) and then used my usual vanilla buttercream recipe. The new recipe clearly paid off as they won the biscuit category! Full instructions on how to make them are below.

Red Nose Jammy Bodgers (a Gloverly cupcakes creation)

Makes 18 large biscuits

1 batch of vanilla biscuit dough, chilled (click here for the recipe – replace the citrus zest with 1 tsp of vanila)

A small amount of vanilla buttercream (click here for the recipe – you only need a small amount so I used what was left after making and icing a batch of cupcakes. If you want to make a full batch of buttercream but aren’t making cupcakes at the same time then any leftover buttercream can be frozen).

3-4 tbsp of seedless strawberry jam stirred together thoroughly with a tsp of icing sugar.

A small amount of black royal icing in a piping bag fitted with small plain nozzle (I used a Wilton no. 1).

After the dough has chilled for 30 minutes, roll it out to about 3-4mm thick and using a plain round cookie cutter, cut out circles of whatever size you chose. With each pair you cut out, cut a circle out of the middle of one them so that you have a “doughnut” – this will give you a biscuit for the top and the full circle will be the bottom.

Knead the trimmings together, re-roll and cut out more pairs of circle until you have used up all the dough. You should have equal numbers of full circles and “doughnuts”. Place on lined baking trays and put back in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Once firm to the touch, pre heat the oven to gas mark 3 (175°C)

Bake for 10 minutes (depending on the size of the biscuits) or until the biscuits are lightly browned around the edges – try to make sure that you have all the full circles on a tray together and the “doughnut” ones on another since they might take different times to cook.

Once the biscuits are baked leave them to rest for 30 minutes.

Place all the full circle on the side together and using a palette knife spread a teaspoon of buttercream onto each – don’t go all the way to the outside. Then place a small teaspoon of jam in the middle and spread it out evenly.

Take the “doughnut” shaped biscuits and place one on top of each of the jam and buttercream covered biscuits. Finally, use the black royal icing to pipe faces onto each one.