Baking Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan forced) / 350F. Grease and flour the holes of two 6 hole jumbo muffin pans. If you only have one, you’ll need to wait for the first batch to cool before removing them and reusing the pan. You can use a regular sized muffin pan and you’ll probably get 16-18 cookies.
• Melt 42g (roughly 1 ½ oz/3 Tbsp) of the butter, until just melted and set aside to cool slightly.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar and salt.
• Use the large side of a box grater to grate in the remaining cold butter, then gently work it into the flour mixture with your fingertips or a pastry blender until it looks a bit like breadcrumbs and is well distributed. You don’t need the butter to be completely worked in, just in very small pieces.
• Stir in the melted butter and almond extract with a fork and your hands until well distributed and you can squeeze together a clump in your hand. It will still be a crumbly mixture.
• Set aside ¼ of the mixture (about 1 cup, not packed), for topping - chill until required.
• Divide the remaining cookie dough between the 12 holes of the jumbo muffin pans. A slightly heaped ¼ cup measure, not packed, is normally about right.
• Press the mixture down firmly to flatten it out, with your fingertips then just make a slight dent in the centre portion.
• Spoon around 1 tablespoon (4 tsp) of jam into each hole.
• Crumble up the remaining mixture so there are no large clumps and sprinkle the mixture evenly over each of the cookies.
• Bake for 20-22 minutes until golden brown around the edges. Set aside to cool for at least 30 minutes, then use a thin knife or palette knife to help lift the cookies out and transfer to a wire rack to cool.