A Christmas treat: meet Nila Holden, owner of eponymously named bakery Nila Holden. She tells us all about her business, and shows us how to make some Linzer biscuits.

Ingredients:

Ingredients (for dough)

Makes approx 12 medium-sized cookies

75g salted butter, cold from the fridge

275g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

95g caster sugar

1 small free range egg, beaten

2 tbsp golden syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

  1. Sift the flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl and add the caster sugar.
  2. Grate the cold butter into the mixing bowl. The colder your butter, the easier this will be. Or, if easier, you could cut the butter into small cubes and add to the bowl.
  3. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients using your fingers until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
  4. Crack the egg into a separate bowl to ensure you don’t get any rogue shell and beat. Add the golden syrup and vanilla essence to the beaten egg and mix.
  5. Make a well in the dry ingredients bowl and pour in the beaten egg, golden syrup and vanilla essence mixture. Mix together to form a dough. Try not to overwork the dough as this will make it tough.
  6. Place dough into a plastic food bag and flatten to form a disc shape. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to chill the dough.
  7. Remove and cut out cookies as per the recipe above.