Cooking with children is a great way to keep them entertained and also a wonderful way to encourage their social-emotional development, cognitive development, fine motor and eye-hand coordination skills.
Plus, who doesn’t love a Spitzbueb?! Ok, these biscuits are a little different (the dough is actually a shortbread, so they’re melt-in-the-mouth crumbly), but they are so yummy and simple to make. Best of all, they’re completely vegan! You can make a classic ‘Spitzbueb’ shape with round cookie cutters, or get creative with whichever shaped cutters have in the drawer (you’ll need a large and small version of the same shape).
Cooking with children is made fun for everyone with this super simple recipe.
Ingredients
- 125g dairy-free margarine
- 60g caster sugar (plus a little extra for sprinkling)
- 70g rice flour
- 125g plain flour
- cherry jam
- pinch of salt
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 160°C / 320°F.
2. Beat together the margarine and sugar until fluffy (for at least a minute), then add the rice flour and salt, and beat again.
3. Add the plain flour, and mix slowly until just combined into a crumbly dough. (It won’t really hold together at this stage, but don’t panic!).
4. Cover two baking trays with baking parchment or greaseproof paper. Roll out the dough to around 1cm thick. Use a biscuit cutter to cut out as many biscuits as you can, placing them on the baking trays. Then roll the off-cuts together and re-roll and cut again. Continue until all the dough has been used up. Then use a smaller shaped cutter to cut ‘windows’ out of half the biscuits, and carefully remove the centres.
5. Sprinkle a little caster sugar over the ‘window’ biscuits, and press it gently into the dough. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, with the bigger biscuits on the upper shelf and the ‘window’ biscuits on the lower shelf. Don’t let them brown – they should stay fairly pale. Remove and place on a cooling rack.
6. When the biscuits are completely cool, spoon around 1 tsp jam onto each of the whole biscuits and spread near to the edges with a knife. Place one of the window (smaller) biscuits on top and dust with a little icing sugar if you wish.
7. Time to eat. Enjoy!