My auntie Irma truly made the best biscuits ever, and this recipe is really special to me, as I have very fond memories of her. She had no children of her own and she simply adored me and my brother.

She would bake this biscuits in huge quantities and deliver them, especially for birthdays or other special occasions that were celebrated in the family and were very popular around festivities like Christmas and Easter. She is no longer around but through this recipe her legacy lives on in our family.

These biscuits are so pretty to look at and absolutely delicious, they just melt in your mouth and the walnut coating around them give you that luxurious crunch.

You can play around a bit with this recipe to suit your taste and make them a bit different every single time you bake them. You can change the type of fruit jam to fill the biscuits with, and for the coating, you can replace walnuts for hazelnuts, almonds or any other type of nuts on their own or any combination you like.

When beautifully arranged and wrapped, these biscuits make a wonderful present for special celebrations or simple and thoughtful pick me up little gift. They will put a smile back on anyone's face. I made them for my husband's birthday, needles to say, it did bring a big smile on his face and he was very happy indeed!

This recipe will make about 12 bigger biscuits.

Ingredients

140g butter (melted)
2 eggs (separated in egg yolks and whites both lightly beaten)
200g all purpose flour
70g caster sugar
150g walnuts (chopped or roughly ground) you can use hazelnuts or almonds (or mix any combination you like)
finely grated lemon zest of ½ lemon (preferably unwaxed)
smooth apricot jam (or other flavour of your preference)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C static and lay the baking tin with baking parchment.

In a large mixing bowl put the flour, sugar, egg yolks, butter and lemon zest. With the spatula or wooden spoon mix well to combine all the ingredients. Then use your hands to gather all the ingredients to get a dough. Shape it into a ball, wrap it in cling film and put in a fridge to chill for about 30min.

After the dough has chilled, start making the biscuits by pinching a bit of a dough (the size of golf ball roughly) and shape it into a small ball. Repeat the process until you use all the dough.

Take a smaller bowl with slightly beaten egg whites and a deeper dish where you put your chopped or roughly ground walnuts.

Dip one dough ball first into egg whites and then into the ground walnuts. Roll it round making sure the whole ball is coated. Repeat the process until all the dough balls are being coated.

Place the coated biscuits into a baking tray and press them down slightly with your hands to get a more disc shape but do not flatten them too much.

With the back of the handle of the wooden spoon make a hole in each biscuit almost reaching the bottom. Make the holes slightly bigger with gentle circular movement.

Put in the oven and bake for about 10 min or until golden in colour.

Take them out of the oven and let them cool a bit in their tray. When hot, this biscuits are very fragile and will break easily.

When still warm take a tea spoon and fill the holes in the biscuits with apricot jam.

Cool the biscuits completely before removing them from the tray.

Wine suggestion

Picolit 2017 Docg by Dario Coos.

When I was a child, desserts after the main meal were more of a weekend treat, and it is when my mum would bake.

And there is one simple dish she always baked in our household, and that is a jam tart or simply crostata as we call it in Italian. It is made using Italian style sweet shortcrust pastry that is enriched with eggs, which help make the dough even flakier, lemon zest, sugar, and baking powder. It is still very popular to bake at home and easily available in bakery shop and supermarkets.

My mum would use different fruit jams that she made using a variety of fruits in the season from our orchard or fruit given by friends or neighbours. Most commonly used type of jam to fill the crostata with would be the apricot jam. Crostata can be also filled with ricotta, Nutella, pastry cream and fresh fruit.

This year we had a brilliant year for figs and they were in abundance in my grandma's back garden. Most were eaten just picked directly from the tree, how luxurious. But there were just so many figs and since nothing gets ever wasted, we made a lot of jam!

There is something so comforting and homely about jam crostata, with a delicate flake crust, filled with your favourite choice of jam. Simply delicious, just melts into your mouth, and most importantly, it is easy to make, and the aroma during the baking is unmistakable.

Crostata is also great for colder days, as a dessert or snack, and is commonly served for breakfast too.

Nice accompanied with cream, vanilla ice-cream or natural Greek yogurt, just to tone down a bit the sweetness of the the fig jam.

Ingredients

250g all purpose flour
105g diced butter, room temperature
1 egg and 1 egg yolk (slightly beaten), keep the egg white for brushing the crostata just before putting it in the oven for baking
50g caster sugar (optional if you use fig jam as it is quite sweet already)
lemon zest of one small unwaxed lemon, finely grated
1 Tsp of liquor like grappa or rum ( I used rum)
¼ Tsp baking powder
jar of fig jam or any other jam of your choice, home made or a good quality one from the food store

Method

To make the pastry, measure the flour into a large bowl and add the butter.

Using just your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Make a well in the centre of the flour, then add the sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, liquor, and baking powder. First stir gently with the fork to combine all the ingredients and for the mixture to come together.

Gently gather the dough together with your hands and transfer it onto a floured work surface.

Gently press the dough, without kneading it, until it comes together to form a firm ball.

Press the dough into a flat disc, wrap it in cling film and refrigerate for about 30min.

Preheat the oven to 180C static or equivalent.

Lightly flour the surface and the rolling pin. Take about 2/3 of the pastry and with the rolling pin roll it out on a surface, then roll the pastry back over the rolling pin, so it is hanging, and ease it into the 23cm loose bottom non stick flan tin.

Press the pastry shell into the side of the tin.

Allow the excess to hang over the side and roll the rolling pin over the top of the flan tin, to cut off the excess pastry.