As it was Burns Night on Monday I decided I needed to do something "festive" (regardless of the fact that I have not a bit of Scottish blood in me). Now, I don't do haggis. I really don't. I think I had a bad experience at a haggis-eating contest at college once so my haggis days are truly over. I settled on shortbread. It's easy, classic and everyone loves it, including Mr M and it's highly unlikely to make me want to yack.
I pondered over which recipe to use - whoever knew there could be so many different ways of making shortbread?! and finally plumped for a recipe from Nigella Lawson, from her How to Eat book.
I must admit, above I have said shortbread is easy, and it is really but heavens above I got into one hell of a sticky mess! The shortbread mixture seemed a bit dry and didn't really mould together very well so I dampened my hands slightly which was a bit of a mistake but it did work so all was good in the end. I'm thinking it probably needed a bit more butter to pull it together. The recipe also didn't really seem to make a lot and trying to make it into a cylinder was interesting but I persevered and got there in the end (before frantically wrapping clingfilm around it in a vain attempt to stop it all falling apart).
Shortbread
Ingredients
100g butter, very soft
100g plain flour
50g icing sugar
50g cornflour
Method
Cream the butter and sugar in the food processor, stopping every now again to make sure the mixture is all pushed down and combining properly. Add the flours and a pinch of salt and process to combine, again checking that it's all pushed down from the sides of the bowl.
Remove and knead into a cylinder shape. Cover with clingfilm and chill in fridge. At the same time preheat the oven to gas mark 3/160c. After about 20 minutes, when the cylinder feels hard to the touch, slice into half-centimetre thick discs (or thinner if you like) and put onto a greased baking tray (dredge with caster sugar if you want a sweet crunchy edge) and bake for 20-30minutes.
The biscuits will continue to firm up once out of the oven - just check the top is dry and the base is not doughy. Remove from the baking try and cool on a wire rack.
100g butter, very soft
100g plain flour
50g icing sugar
50g cornflour
Method
Cream the butter and sugar in the food processor, stopping every now again to make sure the mixture is all pushed down and combining properly. Add the flours and a pinch of salt and process to combine, again checking that it's all pushed down from the sides of the bowl.
Remove and knead into a cylinder shape. Cover with clingfilm and chill in fridge. At the same time preheat the oven to gas mark 3/160c. After about 20 minutes, when the cylinder feels hard to the touch, slice into half-centimetre thick discs (or thinner if you like) and put onto a greased baking tray (dredge with caster sugar if you want a sweet crunchy edge) and bake for 20-30minutes.
The biscuits will continue to firm up once out of the oven - just check the top is dry and the base is not doughy. Remove from the baking try and cool on a wire rack.
So it looked a bit dodgy but it tasted wonderful. Seriously, the best shortbread I have ever tried, even the raw mixture was a beautiful thing. I won't ever use a different recipe again however I will spend some time trying to perfect this one!
love & kisses
Mrs M x
I find most of Nigella's recipes need tweaking to get them to work - sounds tasty though
ReplyDeleteOh I love How to Eat, I've not made this shortbread I use a similar recipe though equally as fiddly I've never had the patience to do the cylinder thought - I tend to squash it onto work surface and use a cutter.... tastes lovely though
ReplyDeleteWow, your shortbread looks great! I know you've mentioned that you won't use another recipe but, this almond shortbread is amazing - http://bit.ly/98ujKW - I hope you give it a chance to impress you :-)
ReplyDeleteI've made it many times before and everyone always comments on how much they love it. It disappears very quickly! :-)
Jess from Tate & Lyle
Hi Jess, thanks for that recipe, I'll give it a go and report back on my blog. I love almonds so like the idea of almonds and cinnamon.
ReplyDeleteNo problem, like I said I've had great success with this recipe and my family absolutely love it too!
ReplyDeleteThat would be great to hear how you get on with it! :-)