What’s Cooking – Traditional Shortbread

Did you ever wonder why shortbread is so expensive? We did and we have no answer to this question. It is easy to make, the ingredients aren’t very expensive yet when you look at shortbread packets on the shelves in a store they cost a fortune… why?

Anyway, due to the fact that we really like shortbread and don’t really fancy spending so much money on them in the shop we decided to make our own… helped by the fact we found a lovely recipe for it in our Make, Bake, Cookies the Recipe Book 🙂

Ingredients list:

• 165g plain flour
• 55g caster sugar
• 115g unsalted butter’ cut into small pieces
• Pinch of salt
• Icing sugar for dusting

And that is all she wrote…

Method:

Preheat the oven to a nice cool 150C.

Line a baking sheet with some baking paper.

Place the flour, salt and sugar into a large bowl and mix together. Add the butter and rub into the dry ingredients with your fingertips. Continue to work the mixture until it forms soft dough. Do not overwork the dough or your finished biscuits will be tough.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to form a 20cm circle.

Transfer it to prepared baking sheet and pinch the edges or use a fork to make small groves all around the edge.

Use a fork and stab your dough a little creating some nice pattern 😉 This allows for steam to escape and helps with the cooking process.

Then using a knife, lightly mark the dough into eight equal pieces, which will create a breaking line for the future.

Bake in the preheated oven for around 45-50 minutes or until the shortbread is firm to the touch and is just coloured.

Leave to cool on a baking sheet for a few minutes.

Sprinkle with sugar.

Cut / break into pieces and move onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy! We did!