I have nothing against a traditional Jammy Dodgers recipe but as I was giving these British classics a vegan makeover anyway I thought I’d spice things up a bit and add some ginger and cinnamon. Oh my goodness they taste even better!
Making these biccies vegan wasn’t too much of a challenge, and neither was giving them a spice twist, but getting to a biscuit dough that would keep its shape when baked was a bit of a faff. After all, Jammy Dodgers are nothing if they don’t have their traditional little heart window in the centre allowing the jam to shine through; so keeping it’s shape once cooked is a big deal!
As the more observant of you may have noticed, some of the biscuits pictures have lost some of the ‘splat’ shaped definition surrounding the hearts, this is entirely down to me rushing and not the fault of the dough. The dough was rolled out slightly too thickly in these biscuits which allowed time for the dough to slightly puff up. The ones that were rolled more thinly baked perfectly with no time for the dough to puff or spread. So learn from my mistake here 🙂
I have a set of classic British biscuit cutters, which included a Jammy Dodger cutter, but a regular circle cutter for the main biscuit with a smaller heart cutter for the biscuit tops would work just as well, or indeed a smaller circle, or star, or whatever you wish. (There’s a link at the bottom of the page if you want some of the cutters I used.)
When first thinking about this Jammy Dodgers recipe, I set out with the aim of having a nice ginger and lemon combo, using lemon and lime marmalade for the filling, but when it came to it I just couldn’t resist using the traditional raspberry jam, so I’ve got a half-and-half mix. As with the cutters, you do exactly as you please and the results will be just as good.
Lemon filling works well but you can use any jam or marmalade you have in the fridge.
- 75 g Vegan butter
- 100 g Dark brown sugar
- 75 g Golden Syrup
- 1 1/2 tbsp Aquafaba (Water from a tin of chickpeas)
- 250 g Plain flour
- Pinch Salt
- 3 tsp Ground ginger
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
- 1/2 tsp Baking powder
- 20 tsp Lemon and lime fine cut marmalade (heaped)
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In a medium-sized bowl, cream together the vegan butter and the sugar into a smooth paste.
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Add the syrup, aquafaba, and a couple of spoons of the flour to stop the mix curdling, and mix together.
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Sieve the rest of the flour into the bowl, along with the ginger, cinnamon, bicarb, baking powder, and a pinch of salt. Use a wooden spoon to mix to a dough.
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Once it starts to come together, push it into a ball with your hands, wrap with clingfilm and put it in the fridge to chill for 1 hour.
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Once your dough is chilled it's rolling pin time! I roll my dough out between two sheets of baking parchment so no excess flour can interfere with the design but if you do use flour for rolling do so sparingly. Roll out to 3mm thickness; definitely no thicker than 4mm or the biscuits will be soft when baked and you'll likely use the definition of your cut/embossed shapes.
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Cut out 20 biscuit bottoms and 20 biscuit tops; the bottoms are just the main shape and the tops have the heart window cut out. You will have to do some re-rolling to get your full biscuit allocation.
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Place your biscuit shapes onto baking sheets covered in baking parchment. You'll need 2 or 3 baking sheets in total.
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Place in the fridge for another hour. This step is important as it helps the gingerbread keep its shape when cooking. Towards the end of the hour heat your oven to 180C/350F.
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Bake your biscuits for 8 minutes. They will be a little soft when you take them out but will firm as they cool. Put on cooling racks to, you guessed it, cool.
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The biscuits don't take long to cool at all and now you can get on with filling them. Use a heaped teaspoon of your chosen filling and put it in the middle of a biscuit bottom, on the smooth side. There's no need to spread it. Press a biscuit top gently down onto the filling--it should spread as you push down and come up a little through the window in the middle. And you're done!
As with any biscuit, you need to keep these Jammy Dodgers in an airtight container. They will last a good week or two but as the jam spends more time next to the biscuit they will start to get a little softer–still blooming yummy though!
If you want to get your hands on a set of the British Biscuit Cutters that I used then you can find them here. The set also includes cutters for a bourbon, an iced ring, and a custard cream. And if the latter tickles your fancy then I have a recipe for vegan custard creams that you definitely want to try.
If you give this Jammy Dodgers recipe a try then please tag me either on Instagram or Twitter–I’m @veganbakeruk on both. I’d love to see how your biscuits turn out.
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