Juliet Sear’s Rodda’s clotted cream filled sponge drops

Method

• To make the sponge drops, preheat the oven to 170c fan and line 3 large baking sheets with baking paper.
• Draw around a cookie cutter if you wish to keep them all a uniform size and pipe them. Leave a space in between each circle a few cms in size as they will puff up and spread a little. Then turn the paper over so the pen doesn’t transfer onto the sponges.
• Put the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract into a large bowl and whisk with an electric hand whisk for about 5 minutes until it has tripled in volume and is very pale and thick. When you lift the whisk out, it should leave trail marks over the surface.
• Sift in the flour a third at a time and gently fold into the mixture, taking care not to knock any air out of it with each addition.
• Spoon the mixture onto the baking sheets with 2 dessert spoons, about a tablespoon in size keeping them as equal as you can, leaving a good gap in between. Alternatively place the mix into a large piping bag, cut a 1cm hole (or use a 1cm nozzle if you have one) and pipe the batter into the circles, leaving a 3cm gap between each one.
• Bake for approx. 8-12  minutes until risen, light golden brown and crisp on the tops.
• Leave to cool on the sheets, then peel away from the paper carefully and sandwich with jam, strawberry slices  and a spoonful of Rodda’s clotted cream.
• Dust with a little icing sugar.