Scottish Shortbread

Benny Biscotti

It should have been easy enough but I failed miserably at my first effort on Scottish Shortbread via a recipe from 'Mastering The Art of Baking' by Anneka Manning.

Anyone have experience of baking this? The dough I made would not hold and was just like a flour and butter mixture you'd use for a cheesecake.

It could be that the butter was not soft enough? The recipe called for 'slightly soft'. Because I keep my butter in the cupboard in a quite warm 1 room apartment; I took that to be slightly soft. Next time should I melt it more?

Perhaps there was too little butter also as I was measuring from the gauge on the butter wrapping as my scales' battery has died.

Leinster1980

Benny Biscotti wrote: »

It should have been easy enough but I failed miserably at my first effort on Scottish Shortbread via a recipe from 'Mastering The Art of Baking' by Anneka Manning.

Anyone have experience of baking this? The dough I made would not hold and was just like a flour and butter mixture you'd use for a cheesecake.

It could be that the butter was not soft enough? The recipe called for 'slightly soft'. Because I keep my butter in the cupboard in a quite warm 1 room apartment; I took that to be slightly soft. Next time should I melt it more?

Perhaps there was too little butter also as I was measuring from the gauge on the butter wrapping as my scales' battery has died.

Did you bake it?

Benny Biscotti

Leinster1980 wrote: »

Did you bake it?

No, the half I was trying to roll I chucked in the bin. I still have the other half of the 'dough' in the fridge. Will leave it there and try again tomorrow.

Day Lewin

Passionate biscuiteer here: I make literally thousands every year.

There are two ways of mixing shortbread, rubbing the butter into the flour, then adding the sugar,
OR
creaming the butter with the sugar then adding the flour.

With the first way, butter should be quite cold though not rocklike

with the second way, cool room temperature will make mixing easier.

However the commonest things wrong with shortbread are:

1. Poor proportions. Many, many published recipes give a ratio that has too much flour and not enough sugar: this will always taste stodgy.
2. Scorching it: many, many published recipes give cooking times too long at temperatures that are too high.
The thinner the biscuit, the more likely it is to burn.

Here is how to make a basic shortbread:

8 oz flour, 6 oz butter, 4 oz caster sugar. [optional: pinch salt, half teasp vanilla]

Cut up the cool butter with a knife into the flour: rub in with fingertips until it feels smooth.
Stir in the caster sugar:
At this point you will hardly believe that this dry powdery mix could ever turn into dough: but continue!
Turn it out on the table and squeeze it together with your bare hands: press down, squeeze, knead: gather the pile together and persist!
(Once a couple of clumps have formed, press the dry stuff down into the clumps and squeeze together)
Gradually this will transform into a smooth buttery dough. The slight warmth of your hands will help the process.
Let it rest and cool a little.
Oven to 165C.
Put parchment paper on flat baking sheet.
Roll out your dough not too thin - not as thin as a coin - look at digestive biscuits in your cupboard, for an idea of the thickness
Cut into shapes as you wish, or leave as a round, which can be a bit thicker.

Bake for 12 minutes, SET A TIMER!!
After 11 minutes, look at the biscuits: either remove, or leave in for two minutes more- TIMER!
Shortbread is done when it smells done - but with NO smell of burning: it shouldn't be starting to brown. A light gilding of the underside is the most browning allowed.

I hope this helps!