Preheat the oven to 180°c (160 fan/ Gas 4/ 350F) and line two large baking sheets with non stick baking paper or parchment.
Cream together the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy.
125 g Golden Caster Sugar, 225 g Butter
Beat in the egg and vanilla extract.
1 Egg, 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Sift in the flour and mix together with a wooden spoon.
450 g Plain Flour
Use your hands to bring the dough together, kneading it in the bowl until you get a smooth biscuit dough. Take it out of the bowl and place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Form the dough into a large disc (about 3cm thick). Cut the dough disc in half with a knife and wrap each half in cling film. Chill the dough for 20 minutes in the fridge.Top Tip: If the dough seems a bit crumbly and dry, add a tablespoon of cold water and knead again. Continue until you get a smooth biscuit dough. Remove the dough from the fridge and cut each half-disc of dough in half again to make 4 quarters of dough. Roll each piece of biscuit dough out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface (don't forget to flour the rolling pin too!). Keep turning the dough a quarter of a turn after each roll to prevent it from sticking to the worktop (add a little more flour if necessary). The dough needs to be rolled to a thickness of around 2.5mm.
Use a 5-6cm fluted biscuit cutter and stamp out as many biscuits as you can (you'll get roughly 44). Bring the offcuts of dough back together with your hands and re-roll until you have used all of the dough up. Carefully place the biscuits on a lined baking sheet (you'll need 2 large ones) using a palette knife. Bake in a preheated oven for 14-16 minutes until very lightly golden (dark golden and you've baked them too long!). Cool on a wire cooling rack.
Once the biscuits have cooled, spread the jam evenly over the underside of half of the biscuits (about half a teaspoon on each biscuit), before placing another biscuit on top. Gently press the biscuits together (some of the jam might ooze out but don't worry).
6 tablespoon Raspberry Jam
Make the white icing by adding recently boiled warm water to the sieved icing sugar, ½ tablespoon at a time, and mixing with a small whisk. You won't need much water, 2 tablespoons should give you a nice spreadable consistency. Spread the top of each biscuit with the white icing (I use a teaspoon to carefully spread it on, which helps prevent too many drips) and top with a halved glace cherry.
200 g Icing Sugar, 12 Glace Cherries