Late night baking - boysenberry & lemon biscuits.

So it's 11:00pm here and I've just put a tray of biscuits in the oven. It's not to satisfy some rampant craving, but rather sibling no.2 needs some baked goods for her tennis match tomorrow at 10:00am and I don't plan to be up earlier than that. So out of love for sleep & laziness, I'm doing them now. Perversely, it's the same amount of work and the same amount of sleep whether I make these today or tomorrow.. I guess I just like being awake later rather than earlier.

Note: the dough will seem too crumbly too bind together, but don't be tempted to add any more liquid, instead persevere and conquer!

This is adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe for Lemon Gems.

Ingredients:
200g butter, softened
75g caster sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
zest of one lemon
pinch of salt
275g plain all-purpose flour
40g ground almonds
25g cornflour
boysenberry jam

How to do it:
1. Beat the butter and sugar together. Beat in the lemon juice + zest, salt and egg yolk.
2. Fold in the flour, then the cornflour and ground almonds.
3. Preheat your oven to gas mark 4/350°F.
4. Shape the dough into balls and flatten onto a lined baking sheet.
5. With your thumb, press to make an indentation in the dough (for the jam to go in later).
6. Bake in an oven at gas mark 4 for roughly 20 minutes.
7. Once very lightly golden, remove and immediately spoon some jam into each indentation.
8. Leave to cool completely.
Makes roughly 20.

Variations: You could of course top with lemon curd to match the lemon in the dough. For orange biscuits, replace the lemon zest & juice with orange, and use marmalade for the top. For lime ones, use lime zest and juice and top with lime curd. Or, my siblings' favourite, add some crunchy peanut butter to the mix (beat in at the first stage) and use strawberry jam for the topping - delicious.

These were great. Crisp and buttery, not too sweet, and the boysenberry went nicely with the lemon.
Again, sorry for the rubbish photo! It was obviously rather dark, it being nighttime, so the flash had to be on. In real life the jam is a vivid purple, and the biscuits look like pretty little jewels.
Ah well.
You can always make them and see for yourself (: