Christmas spiced shortbread - Eat Well Recipe - NZ Herald (2024)

FAQs

What is traditional shortbread made of? ›

Shortbread or shortie is a traditional Scottish biscuit usually made from one part white sugar, two parts butter, and three to four parts plain wheat flour. Shortbread does not contain any leavening, such as baking powder or baking soda.

Many shortbread recipes call for cold butter worked into the dry ingredients and that gives you a wonderfully flaky cookie but if not mixed properly, the results can be inconsistent. I usually stick with creamed room temperature butter.

Piercing the shortbread with a fork is not only for decoration, but it's meant for more even baking. Poking holes in the shortbread allows the heat to penetrate the cookie, hence more even baking.

The most common mistakes when making shortbread are over-working the dough, and incorporating too much flour. The less you work the dough, the more crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth your shortbread cookies will be.

The key with shortbread is not to overhandle it. Make the dough exactly as instructed, but don't mess around making shapes or over rolling the dough - you will end up with delicious but tough biscuits. Stretching and pulling the dough activates the gluten in the flour, making chewy cookies and not crisp ones.

As mentioned above, the main differences between the two styles of cookies are butter content and inclusion of leavening agents. These differences result in very different texture and taste experiences. No matter your preference, you can be sure to get a quality product from Walkers Shortbread.

Americans are the outlier on how we use "biscuit"

To most of the rest of the English-speaking world, a biscuit is what Americans would refer to as either a cookie or a cracker. Biscuits can be sweet (shortbread) or savory. They're baked in the oven, and they're crisp, not chewy.

Irish Shortbread Is Distinct From Scottish Shortbread

As cornstarch is a potent thickener relative to flour, this creates a denser cookie. Whichever version of shortbread you prefer, though, the original -- which is often just called "shortbread" -- came from Scotland.

Fine Cooking explains that the butter should be at refrigerator temperature. While many cookie recipes call for softened butter or at room temperature, if your butter isn't cold when making shortbread, it's likely to turn out greasy or be difficult to roll out.

But in this shortbread cookie recipe, it really makes a difference. Chilling the dough helps the cookies hold their shape. If you don't chill your shortbread dough, the cookies will spread as they bake.

Why do you put shortbread in the fridge before baking? ›

Why do you put shortbread cut-out cookies in the fridge before baking? This is to resolidify the butter. The butter is at room temperature when making the dough resulting in a soft dough. If baked straight away, the butter would melt away immediately when hitting the hot oven and the shortbread would spread.

The name "millionaire's shortbread" appears to have originated in Scotland. The "millionaire" prefix to millionaire's shortbread or millionaires slice implies a level of decadence and wealth to the sweet treat, that it is an upgrade from regular shortbread.

Shortbread was an expensive luxury and for ordinary people, shortbread was a special treat reserved just for special occasions such as weddings, Christmas and New Year. In Shetland it was traditional to break a decorated shortbread cake over the head of a new bride on the threshold of her new home.

Part of the reason for this was practical - desserts for the school lunch system had to be small enough to fit junior cafeteria portions and sturdy enough to withstand the punishment handed out by elementary school kids, and shortbread cookies were ideal for this purpose.

Good shortbread is pale, buttery, crunchy, and 'short'. This means it crumbles at every bite, giving that characteristic shortbread texture. It shouldn't be soft or chewy like cookies, and it shouldn't be browned.

A cornstarch shortbread cookie is a shortbread cookie that contains cornstarch along with all-purpose flour in the cookie dough. The cornstarch is used to give these buttery treats a crispy, melt-in-the-mouth texture. It also helps prevent the cookies from becoming too crumbly and breaking apart.

Some recipes call for the use of corn meal, corn starch (flour) or rice flour in addition to wheat flour to promote that "short" texture. That crumbly, sandy texture is what makes shortbread shortbread as opposed to some other type of dough, batter or pastry.

Firstly it's because the butter and sugar have been over creamed and too much air has been incorporated into the mixture. This extra air will expand during baking as it heats in the oven and will therefore make your biscuits spread.