With this Shortbread dough you can actually just roll the dough into a log shape, then slice it and bake on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. I would probably refrigerate the log before cutting for about 30 minutes.
I would only knead up to a point, when the dough just starts to come together or even better, very coarse crumb mixture and then knead the dough by hand. Completely kneading by machine can make the dough tough and dry. Powdered sugar will help keep the cookies soft for longer and it helps to keep the cookies from spreading while baking.
To add a twist I even topped a couple of big stars with some Nutella and one with jam, then put some crumbled up dough on top. So grab your favourite Christmas cookie cutters and start cutting, minutes in a low oven is all these Melt in Your Mouth Shortbread Cookies need. According to British Food History — Dating back to the 12 th century , shortbread was originally called biscuit bread. These biscuits were made from left-over bread dough that was sometimes sweetened and dried out in the oven to form a hard, dry rusk.
This practise took place over the whole of the British Isles, not just Scotland. The baked cookies should be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week. I sometimes store mine in the fridge because I like cold cookies. They will last up to 10 days by storing them in the fridge. To freeze the shortbread cookies, place parchment paper in between the layers of the completely cooled cookies this prevents them from sticking together when they are in the containers for freezing, or you can also place the baked cooled cookies on a cookie sheet and freeze them, then move the frozen cookies to either airtight bags or containers.
Baked Shortbread Cookies will last up to a month in the freezer. To thaw the cookies be sure to remove the frozen cookies from the bags or containers this way no condensation will form and let them thaw at room temperature. In our house no one waits for them to thaw! Your email address will not be published. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. The BEST shortbread cookie yet!
The trick? Use very high quality butter like Kerry Gold. The higher fat content makes all the difference. If not, do you think it would work?
Hi Mj do you mean like a spritz cookie? I think the dough might be a bit too firm for that, although you could try and see. And I do think it would work for thumbprint cookies. Let me know if you try it. Thank you for your reply. If you have any thoughts, please let me know. Hi Marthajean, I think it would work, this dough is quite firm, just make sure to flour the molds well.
Let me know how it goes. Hello, will be making this. Can you tell me which exact brands you used for each ingredients?
Thank you much! Hi Rica, are you in Italy? Hi Jade They should last about 1 week in an air-tight container at room temperature. They will last about months if frozen in freezer bags. Hope that helps. Last a week?! It was fine then. Hi Stacey! They should last about 1 week in an air-tight container at room temperature.
That lets me know when to bake for gifts on Christmas Day. I am making a trial batch today. Wish me luck. Hi Dini Thanks for the tips! Definitely going to try out the recipe soon.
Thank you for the very clear instructions on how to make good shortbread. I really liked the fact that the website had reasons for doing each step and suggestions for substitutions and other flavouring choices. Also the fact that weights were used in the recipe I was very confident as to the fact I just needed to patiently work the flour in.
I made the best shortbread I had ever made. Thank you. Thank you so much Lea! My mother used to blend the butter and sugar by hand even though she had a mixer.
Worked fine too. Love how easy these shortbread cookies are! Lovely texture. These are so simple, so cute, and so delicious! What great tips on making the perfect shortbread cookies. These shortbread cookies are seriously my favorite. So melt in your mouth, delicious! Thank you for all the tips!
Author: Dini K. Cuisine: European. Measurements for this recipe are given in weight measurements to ensure perfect results every time. Volume measurements are approximations, and may not yield consistent results. Prep: 20 minutes. Chilling time: 1 hour. Cook: 20 minutes. Total Time: 40 minutes. Servings: 20 Cookies. US Customary - Metric. Instructions: Classic Shortbread Cookies Place the butter and salt in the mixer bowl, and mix on medium speed until creamy using a paddle beater - about 2 to 4 minutes.
You an use a stand mixer or a hand-held mixer. Add the sugar and mix until the sugar and butter are well mixed, and the mix is nice and creamy - about 1 to 2 minutes. If you're using any flavoring, add it to the mixture along with the sugar.
DO NOT over-mix, as this can make the cookies tough and chewy. Using floured hands OR a spatula - bring the dough together to form a cohesive dough fold the dough over 2 - 3 times to help bring it together. Then flatten the dough into a disc shape. Place the dough disc in a gallon-size ziploc bag, on a flat smooth surface.
Without closing the bag, gently roll the dough using a rolling pin, maintaining an even thickness throughout the dough. Keep the bag open while you do this to allow excess air to escape, so you can easily roll out the dough to an even thickness. Once the dough has been rolled out, close the bag, and carefully place it on a sheet pan. Then transfer this to the fridge to chill for about 30 - 60 minutes, or until the dough is firm enough to cut through.
Next, carefully remove the dough disc from the ziploc bag. Cut the dough lengthwise, along the middle, to get two slabs of dough, each approximately 10 x 4 inches. Using a sharp knife OR a crinkle cutter - cut shortbread fingers that are about 1 inch in width. With a straight knife, you should get about 20 cookies, and with a crinkle cutter you may get about 18 - 20 cookies depending on how you cut them.
Using a fork or toothpick - pierce each cookie in a pattern on top see pictures in the post. Transfer the parchment paper with the cookies onto a baking sheet and refrigerate for about another 30 - 60 minutes, until the cookies are chilled. Sometimes I cover the pan and keep it in the fridge overnight as well at this point.
When the cookies are ready to be baked, place the cookies on a parchment paper-lined baking tray, about 1 inch apart you may need to use 2 half sheet pans for all the cookies. Bake the cookies in the center of the oven, for about 15 - 20 minutes, or just until the bottom edges of the cookies are starting to color. Make sure to check on the cookies every few minutes. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool.
Repeat with the second sheet pan of shortbread cookies. Store the cooled cookies in an airtight container. Scottish Shortbread Cookies Once the dough has been shaped into a disc, and placed inside a gallon-size ziploc bag, gently press the dough to form a circle that's roughly about 7 inches in diameter, and evenly thick.
Butter an 8 or 9 inch springform pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Place the dough in the prepared springform pan. Press the dough to fill the cake pan, while making sure the thickness is even throughout.
Optional - you can make the edge of the dough a little thicker than the rest, and pinch it to make a fluted edge. This is just an optional decorating idea for your Scottish shortbread cookies. Using a sharp knife - cut the dough into 8 wedges while still in the pan, and pierce the dough using a fork or a toothpick in a pattern see pictures in post.
Place the dough in the fridge to chill for about 1 hour, or longer. Place the pan in the center of the oven, and bake the cookies for about 45 - 60 minutes, until the edges are a golden brown. A 9 inch pan may only take 40 - 45 minutes, and an 8 inch pan may take up to 60 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven, and run a small flat knife along the edge of the pan, and carefully remove the springform pan collar from the base. Use a sharp or a serrated knife to cut the shortbread cookies into wedges along the cuts you made before. Use a spatula to carefully lift the cookies and place them on a parchment paper-lined sheet pan and return the cookies to the oven for a further 10 - 15 minutes until the edges are set.
Remove from the oven, and allow them to cool. Serve at room temperature. Course: Cookies, Dessert, Snack. Did you make this? Tag me on Instagram! More Recipes You'll Love Buttery Espresso Shortbread cookies. Classic Thumbprint Cookies. Leave a Review Cancel reply I love hearing from you! Submit your question or recipe review here. Your email address will not be published. This could be a contender — although I'd reduce the ratio of rice slightly, or it's more grit than biscuit.
Scottish food expert Sue Lawrence knows her shortbread — and she uses cornflour, rather than ground rice, to give a "nice melt in the mouth texture" — 50g to g plain flour, along with g slightly-salted butter and 85g caster sugar. Shortbread, she says, benefits from a wee bit of salt, and I have to agree — a generous pinch also works wonders.
It's patted out and cooked in a gentle C oven for 35 to 40 minutes, to give a rich, feather soft shortbread that does indeed dissolve on the tongue.
The flavour is good, but personally, I prefer a bit of Scottish sand in my petticoat tails. I find only one recipe using any sort of leavening agent, as used at Ballymaloe Cookery School — the news of the change in recipe must have been lost somewhere over the Irish Sea. A good pinch of baking powder is sifted into g butter and g caster sugar, along with g plain flour and 75g ground rice, and baked in a C oven for an hour. There's a satisfying 'snap' as I break a biscuit in half, but I find the texture rather dry and crunchy — I can imagine these with ice cream, but they're a bit too austere for a cup of tea.
This leads me to seek out a richer recipe for so-called Ayrshire shortbread, which, not content with the butter and sugar content of the traditional biscuit, demands cream and egg as well.
I try one taken from a manual of Household Management , which uses 2 tbsp cream and 1 egg yolk stirred into g plain flour, g rice flour, g caster sugar, and g butter. The dough is moister than an all-butter version, and the shortbread has a rather scone-like texture — in fact, fluffy wouldn't be too strong a word for these deviants.
Too soft by half — proper Sassenach biscuits in fact. Sue Lawrence, and Leiths, both call for softened butter. Delia and Good Housekeeping ask for it at room temperature. Chef Marcus Wareing , however, in his book How to Make the Perfect … specifies the butter for his mother-in-law Doreen's shortbread must be chilled, and then grated into the dry ingredients.
This is a technique I've come across before in pastry making — keeping the mixture cool means it's easier to work with. However, according to Bon Appetit magazine, using cold butter also helps to give a flaky, rather than a crumbly finished product, as "the relatively large particles … leave air pockets when they melt during baking ".
Flaky is not a word writ large in my shortbread dreams, but I give the recipe a try anyway, chilling the dough for an hour in the fridge before baking as well in obedience to Doreen. The texture of her shortbread does seem different — looser, somehow, and when I break one in half, I spot a few tiny cavities in the crumb.
As Leiths also recommend chilling the dough before baking, although only for 15 minutes, I make another batch of their recipe with soft butter, stick it straight in the oven without passing the fridge, and end up with thinner, crunchier biscuits — presumably because the mixture spreads as the fat melts. I conclude that refrigerating the dough is a good idea, but chilling your butter probably isn't.
In the course of my baking, I've noticed that many recipes instruct the baker to pat her biscuits into shape, rather than rolling them. This puzzles me, until I read F Marian McNeill's explanation: too much pressure on the dough has a "tendency to toughen it".
Sue Lawrence agrees that if you have cool hands, you should use them — if not, she says, a light rolling pin will be fine. To put this to the test, when making the Ballymaloe biscuits, I roll out half the dough firmly, and pat the other half into shape by hand.
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