Lemon Sandwich Cookies

So baking has been quite lax of late due to being completely swamped with work from university.  There's barely time for anything other than work and if I'm not working, I'm crashed on the sofa from exhaustion.  Goodness knows what I'll be like when I'm on my first school placement in a couple of weeks.  Okay, there were some baking exploits over the last couple of weekends, but those are for the Dessert Challenge so you'll have to wait until Thursday for details on that.

Anyway, I came home on Friday, relieved that I now have a two week holiday (although there will still be lots of work to get done) and decided I needed to bake something quick and yummy.  Obviously it was going to be biscuits, because I love biscuits, and they would be lemon sandwich biscuits.  The original recipe is for vanilla and raspberry filled biscuits (which are quite fantastic) but I wanted to make them lemon because, as some of you may know by now, the fiancé and I love lemony things.

Well, they are certainly yummy but they took a little longer than planned to make.  My dough was not quite as soft as it should have been.  I didn't let my butter soften first and I burst three disposable bags in the process of piping them out onto trays.  Silly me.  Other than that though, they were very simple to do, and ended up being quite pretty.  Plus yummy.  Very yummy, even if they are a little delicate.  The biscuit and filling go really well together and they melt in your mouth.

Recipe - Makes about 15

Biscuits - adapted from The Great British Bake Off: How to Bake:

• 250g/8oz softened butter (very important for getting a soft dough)
• 60g/2oz icing sugar
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 200g/7oz plain flour
• 60g/2oz cornflour

1. Line 2-3 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
2. Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl and beat in the butter until smooth and creamy.
3. Add the lemon extract and mix.
4. Sift the plain flour and cornflour together into the bowl and beat the mixture until it is smooth and of a pipe-able consistency.
5. Fit a strong piping bag with a large, closed star nozzle and spoon in the dough.
6. Pipe spirals onto the prepared trays, starting in the middle of the spiral and working outwards until it is 5cm/2inches in diameter.
7. Chill in the fridge for 15-20 minutes to firm up and in the mean time, preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.
8. Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes or until the edges just start to brown. 
9. Let the sit on the tray for about 3 minutes before carefully transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Filling: 

• 115g/4oz butter
• 250g/8oz icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 1 tsp milk

1. Put all the ingredients into a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy.
2. Transfer into a piping bag fitted with a large, open star nozzle.
3. Pipe swirls of buttercream onto the underside of half the biscuits.
4. Top each frosted biscuit with another, unfrosted biscuit to create a sandwich.
5. Dust with icing sugar.