Super-easy & fun Jam Sandwich biscuits

These cookies are such a favourite in our house. The recipe is fairly easy and there are no jazzy ingredients needed. The dough is quite an easy one for children to handle as it is neither too soft nor too sticky. The best part is letting your children (and the big kids) have a bit of fun with the shapes they cut out on the top cookie.

TIPS: Look inside your utensil drawer for inspiration on what to use as a cutter. A chopstick is a useful tool to poke out some eyes. A teaspoon or bottle top can help you make the curve of a smile. as for cutting out the cookies themselves, use one of your children's drinking cups with a floured rim.

I would also suggest that you make the cookie dough in the morning and let it rest before you roll and cut it, this will make it much easier to work with. We have been making the dough at around 9.30am, rolling and cutting at 11.00am, baking while the baby naps and then enjoying them with milk or tea as an afternoon snack.

You will need:

For the biscuits:

• 300 grams plain flour

• 200 grams butter / margarine

• 100 grams caster / icing sugar

For the filling:

• 100g

• 50 grams butter

• a few drops of vanilla essence

• seedless raspberry jam

Start by creaming together the butter and the sugar. Once this is incorporated and fluffy, slowly add the flour. Once a dough forms, spread out a sheet of cling film or baking parchment, put your ball of dough in the middle, place another sheet of cling film or baking parchment on top and then roll your dough out to a thin slab. This should be no thicker than a £1 coin. Leave this to chill in your fridge for at least 45 minutes.

While your dough is chilling, assemble your cutting items. Cups are great cookie cutters, piping nozzles are great for a "shocked open mouth", sugarpaste letter cutters can be used to cut out letters. If you're stuck for ideas, pick up one of your kids magazines, trace some fun shapes onto baking parchment and cut them out. If you don't have parchment, tin foil will work equally well.

Preheat your oven to 175 degrees celsius (165 fan). Remove your dough from the fridge and start to cut your cookie shapes out. Remember that each cookie will need 2 rounds, a "front" and a "back". Take half of your rounds, ie the "backs" and put them on the baking tray ready to bake. Now you can cut your designs into the "fronts", be it circles, stars, hearts, faces or words. Make sure to keep your cutouts in the middle of the cookie! Kids can use their own cutlery to help cut if needed. Once these have been cut, add them to the baking tray and pop them in the oven.

TIP: If you are using parchment on your baking tray, and your oven has a fan, you should secure the paper down so that it doesn't flutter up and ruin the shape of the cookies near it. This can be done with a tiny blob of dough or butter.

At this point you can start to make your buttercream, by creaming your butter, adding the icing sugar slowly, and finally the vanilla. Don't get too carried away with this as you need to keep an eye on the cookies. You can continue with the buttercream while the cookies cool.

Check your cookies regularly. Small cookies will need no longer than 7 minutes to cook (remember they are thin as each cookie needs 2 rounds), and larger ones will need 8-9 minutes. Once the edges of your cookies look a little golden, get them out. Leave them to cool on the tray, and then transfer to a cooling rack or a separate tray. They must be totally cool before you fill them.

When cool, pipe a thin circle of buttercream around the edge of the "back" of the cookie, which will keep your jam in place. If you don't have a piping bag and nozzle, you can use a freezer bag with a corner snipped off. Fill the middle of your cookie with jam, and then carefully sandwich them together. If you don't have jam you can use Nutella, peanut butter (experimental but hey, we are in a lockdown!) or lemon curd.