Gevulde Koeken (Dutch Almond Biscuits)

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees celsius. Weigh the dry ingredients for your dough and place these in a food processor with the chopped butter. Blitz in short bursts until mixture resembles fine bread crumbs (you can do this by rubbing the butter in by hand, but a little machinery makes life a lot easier!).

Slowly add the chilled water, a little at a time while blitzing in short bursts just until the dough comes together (if using a food processor be careful not to over process or the dough will be tough.)

Tip the dough out onto a floured bench and shape into a disc. Cover in gladwrap and leave to rest in a cool spot for about an hour or so.

While the dough is resting, get on with the almond filling. Roughly break up the marzipan (almond paste) with your fingers. Zest the lemon and add it to the marzipan, and then add the lightly beaten egg. Beat these together with electric beaters until smooth. Note: if your almond mixture looks a little runny you can mix in a teaspoon or two of almond meal to help thicken it, but no more.

When your dough is rested, unwrap it and cut the disc in half. Roll one half of the dough out to a thickness of about 2mm. Then use a biscuit cutter to cut approximately 24-30 rounds (about 3 inches in diameter.)

Place half your rounds on a parchment lined baking tray and put your almond filling into a piping bag (or a ziploc bag, squeezing it to the corner before cutting the corner tip off.) Pipe the filling into the centre of your rounds leaving an edge of dough around the outside.

Lightly beat the remaining egg and brush the edges of each round. Then place the top layer of dough on top and gently press around the edges to seal the almond filling inside (use a fork to give a pretty pattern.) Use the last of the egg to glaze the tops of the cookies and finish each one with a slivered or blanched almond for decoration.

Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 15-18 minutes or until golden.