Broken Skateboard Shortbread

It's up to you.

12 detailed steps, from preparation to service.

1. Weigh and separate paste, trim and finish

   Weigh 220 g of flour, 60 g of ground almonds and 80 g of icing sugar in a large bowl. Put the 20 g of finishing icing sugar in another small bowl: they do not go into the dough. Keep the 150 g of jam closed next to it and prepare two baking tray covered with baking paper.

2. Dice the butter and rub it in with your fingertips

   Cut the 140 g of cold butter into diced pieces of about 1 cm and add them to the bowl. Rub the dice between the fingers with the dry ingredients for 3 to 5 minutes: the mixture should look like wet sand, without large pieces of butter. Avoid crushing all the dough in your palms, which would warm it up too much.

3. Break the egg and collect the dough

   Break the egg in a small bowl so that you can remove any piece of shell. Beat it for a few seconds with the vanilla teaspoon, then pour everything into the bowl. Mix with a spatula, then briefly press the dough between the hands until it forms a ball; stop as soon as the crumbs adhere, without kneading it like bread.

4. Flatten and let stand for an hour

   Place the dough on baking paper, flatten it into a 2 cm thick disc and wrap it. Place it in the refrigerator for 1 hour: it must become firm but be able to bend without breaking. If it is very hard at the exit, leave it for 5 minutes on the worktop before spreading it out.

5. Spread regularly on 3 mm

   Place the dough between two large sheets of baking paper. Pass the roller from the center to the edges, turn the package a quarter of a turn and start again until 3 mm thick everywhere. Do not flour the worktop: the paper prevents sticking without adding flour to the recipe.

6. Cutting the skate boards

   Preheat the oven to 170 °C, conventional oven setting (no fan). With an oval cookie cutter or a 8 x 4 cm paper template and a knife, cut 24 ovals; lift them with a spatula so as not to stretch them. Place 12 whole bases on one plate and the 12 futures on the other, leaving about 2 cm between the cookies.

7. Open the break in the top

   In each of the 12 tops, cut out a zigzag slot about 5 mm wide in the middle of the board, without going all the way to the edges. Remove the pieces with the tip of the knife and put them next to them to cook them too. Collect the dough, re-spread it to 3 mm and cut additional cookies; they are cooked separately and are not necessary for the 12 sandwiches.

8. Cook one baking tray at a time

   Bake each baking tray for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges just start to brown. Monitor small breakage pieces: remove them earlier if they color before the large ovals. Leave the biscuits on the baking sheet for 5 minutes out of the oven, then gently move them onto a rack and wait about 25 minutes, until fully cooled.

9. Powder the tops before assembling them

   Put the 20 g of finishing icing sugar in a small strainer and powder the 12 openwork tops, over a sheet of paper. Spread the 150 g of jam over the whole 12 bases, or about 12 g per cookie, leaving 5 mm free at the edge. Place a top on each base without pressing on its slit; the red jam must appear in the breakage.

10. Allow the two layers to adhere

    Place the sandwiches flat on a tray and let them sit for 30 minutes in a cool room. Do not stack them: they are still fragile and jam can slip. Meanwhile, prepare the small fragments of cooked shortbread, choosing two short pieces for each of the 12 skates.

11. Draw the axes in chocolate

    Chop the 50 g of dark chocolate with the knife and put them in a perfectly dry bowl. Pour 2 cm of water into a small saucepan, heat to a gentle simmer and then lower the heat. Set the bowl over the pan without touching the water and stir with a spatula. Remove while a few small pieces remain and stir off the heat until melted. Wipe the bottom of the bowl and do not pour any water into the chocolate. Then let the chocolate cool down for 3-5 minutes: it should run in thick ribbon, not like water. Pour some of it into a small cone of baking paper or a piping bag of which you cut an opening of 2 mm.

12. Lay the debris and let it take

    On each skate, draw a transverse line near each end, without closing the central slot. Fix two pieces of shortbread near the break with a small drop of chocolate, then leave to freeze for 20 minutes. The boards remain lying down; spread any remaining chocolate on the surplus biscuits and keep them apart. Store the sandwiches in a box in the refrigerator and take them out 15 minutes before serving.