Shortbread Is My Favourite

Sure is. I love it. Such a simple treat. Only 3 main ingredients: sugar, butter, flour. But it tastes wonderful. I have sussed out the best commercial varieties (Walkers Scottish brand is the best). I have also discovered that ‘all-butter shortbread’ may not actually contain that much butter.

As with a lot of things in life, if you can work out how to do it yourself, you are more likely to get the result you want. There is also the added bonus that you can take all the credit for it. Home-made shortbread is the best of all. Through trial and error I have honed my recipe to perfection.  Here it is:

250g salted butter, softened

125g caster sugar

300g plain flour

50g cornflour

Flavourings: a teaspoon of vanilla extract, or a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Combine the butter and sugar. Mix the flours and add gradually to the butter/sugar until you have a smooth dough. Add vanilla or cinnamon along the way.  Roll dough into a long cylinder shape, wrap in cling film and leave to rest in a cool place for a while.

When you are ready to bake, prepare 2 baking trays and pre-heat the oven to a medium heat. My oven is like a furnace so I only put it on 120 degrees. Take the dough and using a sharp knife, cut it into slices of about 5mm thick. Lay them out on the trays (they won’t spread much). Finish with a sprinkle of caster sugar and bake for 10-15 minutes. You don’t want them to colour too much. Let them cool on the trays for ten minutes before removing them to a cooling tray. They will be soft at first but will harden as they cool down.

These biscuits are melt-in-the-mouth delicious and they are great with ice-cream for dessert, or just on their own with a cup of tea. Here’s a batch I made the other day. I sprinkled brown sugar on top as I didn’t have any caster sugar to hand. I rolled the edges in brown sugar too.

Herbie was watching my every move, no doubt hoping to get a lick of the bowl. I got my storage box out to put them in, and before I knew it, Herbie was in it.

So much for my dairy-free diet eh? The shortbread biscuit could be the very last bastion of dairy for me – in fact it could be a bridge too far. Once the biscuit is baked, you can’t see the butter, so it isn’t really there, right?

Till next time,

L x

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