Guest Post - Shrewsburys

Today's post is all the way from my mum in New Zealand! She's a great baker, and we love to compare notes on one of our many phone marathons. When she mentioned that she had made some Shrewsburys for a friend I was so excited as they are a very NZ biscuit - they don't have them in Australia and the UK version is almost unrecognisable to us Kiwis.

Shrewsbury biscuits were originally made in the town of Shrewsbury in Shropshire, England. They were a plain biscuit similar to shortbread, flavoured with lemon zest and sometimes currents or caraway seeds.

In the 1970's New Zealand's confectionery company Griffin's started to produce their version of Shrewburys. Two plain but sweet biscuits with a crinkle cut edge stuck together with strawberry jam and with a star or heart shape cut out of the middle.

Now, over to mum:

Hi Amber,

Here is the recipe for Shrewsbury biscuits. It comes from the Edmonds cookbook.

    4ozs. butter
    4ozs. sugar
    1 egg
    1 tablespoon grated lemon rind (or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence if no lemons)
    8ozs. flour
    1 teaspoon baking powder
    Raspberry jam

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and lemon rind. Beat well. Add sifted flour and baking powder.
Put onto floury surface and roll out. Cut into rounds making a small hole in the middle of every second biscuit.

Bake 10-15 minutes at 350 F. Watch carefully and take out when biscuits start to colour.
When cold put together with raspberry jam. Overcooked gluey jam works well here.

Makes 15 biscuits. Biscuits without the jam freeze well and stay crunchy. They soften up with jam by the second day.

Mum's Shrewsburys with home-made raspberry jam!