Baking · Snacks

Aunty Al’s Cockles — Jam and Vanilla Cream

Name: Aunty Al’s Cockles — Jam and Vanilla Cream
Prep time: 30 min
Yield: Approximately 15 paired cockles — source yield, to check in a kitchen trial
Ingredients: 2 eggs, weighed without shells; Plain flour equal to the shelled eggs’ weight; Cornflour equal to the shelled eggs’ weight; Caster sugar equal to the shelled eggs’ weight; 1 tablespoon desiccated coconut; 125g softened butter; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 45g softened butter; 140g sifted icing sugar; 1 tablespoon warm milk; ½ teaspoon vanilla extract; Raspberry jam, enough for a thin layer

Delicate paired biscuits with jam and a thin vanilla buttercream filling, inspired by Benjamin’s memory of Aunty Al’s cockles.

By Benjamin · Updated 2026-10-16

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Sketch of pale golden cockle sandwich biscuits with thin red jam and vanilla buttercream layers on an ivory plate. — Recipe illustration

About this recipe

Benjamin’s great-great Aunty Al was Alice, his great-grandfather’s sister. He remembers her making brittle biscuits she called cockles, with a thin cream filling. He selected Lee’s cockles as the reference and confirmed that this version should have both jam and vanilla buttercream between the halves.

These small, paired biscuits leave their pale golden tops plain, with the filling visible at the join. The original family formula has not been recovered. Lee describes the reference as delicate and between a biscuit and a cake; this adaptation still needs a kitchen trial to find out how closely its texture matches Aunty Al’s.

At the kitchen bench