Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Jam Drops


There’s no doubt about it, some food is just comfort food. Not in the clichéd sense of the term…warm fatty foods that you can enjoy beside a fire, but in the sense that some food brings back great memories. My good friend, N1 who I have mentioned previously, used to make jam drops all the time (and probably still does, do you?). Returning to boarding school after holidays was accompanied by an ice-cream container of the biscuits. Onto uni days and visiting N1 in Brisbane usually involved jam drops and a cup of tea at some point. She used to keep them in the freezer so the jam would be nice and sticky.

Not only do they bring great memories for me, they’re also no-fuss to make and fairly foolproof (hmm, read on…) When a morning tea at work called for us all to bring a plate I settled on jam drops. Unfortunately I got a little distracted while they were in the oven so the end result was burnt on the bottom. I could blame the oven however it’s probably the reason they were burnt only on the bottom and not all over. The morning the biscuits were required saw me scraping off the burnt bottoms the way people scrape toast, a funny sight I’m sure.

Anyway, here they are. I’m not really sure where I got this recipe. It’s not N1’s recipe and it’s not an old family recipe either. I picked it up somewhere about 2 years ago and it’s been scribbled on the back of an envelope ever since. I’m sure it’s one of a hundred different versions.

Jam Drops

80 g butter
1/3 cup caster sugar
2 tbsp milk
½ tsp vanilla essence
1 cup SR flour
1/3 cup custard powder
Jam of your choice

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 2 baking trays with paper. Beat butter and sugar until light and creamy. Beat in milk and vanilla. Add sifted flour and custard powder and mix to form dough.
Roll 2 teaspoons into a ball and put on trays, pressing down in the middle with your finger. Fill with a drop of jam.
Bake for 15 minutes and cool on a tray.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bring on the retro food! How cool are these? Mmmm...remember cream buns at primary school? And custard tarts? Maybe we should do a retro bake off on our blogs and invite people to submit. What do you think?

Kristin said...

yum yum! we only make jam drops at christmas (along with gingerbread). i think if i made them in winter, they would disappear in the witching hour between work and dinner...
great picture!

Kristin said...

oh,
and peter, I would definitely take part in a retro food bake-off!
just think fairy cakes!

Ali-K said...

A retro bake-off is a great idea, Peter. So many options. A friend of mine has a coobkook entitled "The Beautiful New Zealand Microwave Cook Book" or something like that. Imagine the possibilities in that one. Perhaps I have a retro-streak at the moment because I was contemplating custard tarts a few weeks ago when I had some leftover egg yolks.
Kazari_lu, luckily I took these to work so i wasn't tempted to scoff them all myself.

Truffle said...

Oh I just love these. Yours look gorgeous!

Oh for the love of food! said...

Hi Ali! Thanks for visiting my blog. Your jam drops look fab!

Ali-K said...

Thanks Truffle!

Oh For the Love of Food, it's a pleasure visiting your blog, I see the strawberry tarts have been oh-so popular!