Cornflour keeps this Hairy Bikers empire biscuits recipe short, with seedless raspberry jam between two rounds and optional icing and a cherry on top. So their Mums Know Best batch makes 12, taking about an hour by my timings, with around 250 calories per twelfth by my estimate.
The recipe is Mrs Miller’s, a lifelong friend of Aida Grier in Perthshire, and Si and Dave call them “dead easy for kids to make”. But unlike versions with egg, this dough is just butter, flour, icing sugar and cornflour, mixed by hand with no chilling step in the method.
Watching the oven closely is the secret here, so the biscuits come out “as soon as they are firm to the touch but still pale”. That matters at 190°C, since I think 10 to 12 minutes leaves little margin, and I’d expect golden edges to mean crisp rather than short.
Hairy Bikers Empire Biscuits
Description
Butter, plain flour, icing sugar and cornflour are worked by hand into soft dough, rolled about 1cm thick and cut with a scone cutter. Once baked and cooled, pairs are stuck together with jam, then iced and finished with a glacé cherry if you like.
Ingredients
For the biscuits
To fill and finish
Instructions
- Heat the oven: Preheat the oven to 190°C/Gas 5, or about 170°C fan by my conversion. Then sprinkle a large baking tray with flour.
- Make the dough: Mix the flour, butter, icing sugar and cornflour together with your hands until the mixture forms a soft dough.
- Roll and cut: Roll the dough out to about 1cm thick and cut it into circles with a scone cutter. Then place the biscuits on the floured tray.
- Bake: Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, watching them carefully. Then take them out as soon as they are firm to the touch but still pale.
- Cool: Leave them to cool on a wire rack.
- Sandwich and finish: Once they are cool, sandwich the biscuits together in pairs with raspberry jam. Then top with icing and a cherry if you like.
FAQs
How many empire biscuits does the recipe really make?
They say it makes 12, though not whether that means 12 rounds or 12 finished sandwiches. And the dough weighs 450g, so my rough maths with a 6cm cutter at 1cm thick is about a dozen rounds, or 6 sandwiched biscuits.
For 12 finished biscuits, I’d roll the dough nearer 5mm and cut 24 or more rounds, which is my adjustment rather than theirs. Then check them a minute or two early, since thinner rounds will bake faster, and you’ll likely need a second tray.
What jam and icing go on top?
Their list asks for a pot of seedless raspberry jam, while the icing is simply marked optional with no recipe given. So I’d use glacé icing, stirring a little water into icing sugar until it’s thick, which is my suggestion rather than theirs.
A whole pot is far more jam than one batch needs, so I’d spread a thin layer, which is also what my calorie estimate assumes. And the glacé cherry is optional in their recipe as well, so plain iced tops are fine.
Were empire biscuits on the TV series?
Yes, BBC listings put Aida and Victoria’s empire biscuits in series one of Mums Know Best, in the Family Favourites programme. And a BBC clip says they had already appeared in episode one. Then Si and Dave write that they visited the pair at home in Perthshire.
In the same book, the butterfly cakes come from Aida and Victoria too, with orange curd and orange butter icing under the wings. And Mrs Miller herself gets a line of praise, since her cakes are “legendary in the area”. Then two recipes after the empire biscuits, Aida’s own Mars bar rocky road needs no oven at all, and she leaves the marshmallows whole.
Is the dough like Viennese whirls?
Quite close, because both use equal weights of butter and plain flour with icing sugar and cornflour, though the whirls add vanilla and salt. And their Brilliant Bakes cherry Viennese whirls use 250g each of butter and flour with only 50g each of the other two.
That gives the empire dough proportionally more sugar and cornflour, and it’s rolled and cut rather than piped and chilled. And both end up as jam sandwiches, though the whirls add buttercream as well.
Why are they called empire biscuits, and how long do they keep?
The Dictionary of the Scots Language records “German biscuit” as the older name, while a 1995 Herald quote links the change to “the Kaiser’s war”. That history isn’t from Si and Dave, though, so treat it as background rather than part of their recipe.
There’s no keeping time in their recipe, so my own guide is plain biscuits in an airtight tin, filled and iced on the day. Then for a Scottish teatime spread, their whisky and marmalade Dundee cake and Mums Know Best millionaire’s shortbread fit alongside.
