Lunettes

Cook Time 45 minutes plus refrigeration and chilling

Servings 12

Ingredients

250g (1⅔ cups) plain flour

150g cold unsalted butter, cubed

80g caster sugar

Pinch of sea salt

1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

1 egg

Pure icing sugar, sifted, to serve

Raspberry Jam

400g raspberries

300g caster sugar

2 basil sprigs

juice of ½ lemon

Method

For the raspberry jam, mash the raspberries and caster sugar together in a saucepan. Add the basil and stir well until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, skimming any foam that rises to the surface. Add the lemon juice and continue to cook until the jam reaches 103–104°C on an instant-read thermometer.

Ladle the jam into a warm sterilised jar, seal and allow to cool. Due to the jam’s low sugar percentage (usually jam has around 60 percent sugar), this jam should be stored in the refrigerator and used within 6 days.

Place the flour, butter, caster sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse to a fine crumb. Add the vanilla and egg and continue to pulse until the dough begins to look damp and is coming together. Turn out onto a clean work surface and shape into a disc. Wrap in plastic wrap or baking paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Line two baking trays with baking paper.

Roll the dough out between two pieces of baking paper until 3-4 mm thick. Cut out the biscuits using a fluted almond-shaped cutter about 10 cm in size. Reroll the scraps and cut out more biscuits, so you have 24 in total. Use a 2 cm round cutter (I use a piping bag tip) to cut two rounds in half of the biscuits (to make the ‘lunettes’). Transfer the biscuits to the trays and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan-forced.

Bake the biscuits for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden. Allow to cool.

Spread the jam on the biscuit bases without holes and top each with a cut-out ‘lunette’ biscuit, sandwiching the jam between the biscuit layers. Dust with the icing sugar and serve.