Scotland/Ireland

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Shortbread Cookies

Shortbread Cookies

Martha's Makes Scottish Shortbread | A touch of rice flour is the secret to perfectly crisp shortbread. With such a short ingredient list, it's important to use the best-quality salted... | By Martha Stewart | When it comes to shortbread, the short refers to the rich crumbly texture due to the high proportion of fat to flour. In this case, butter to flour and the bread dates back to medieval times when Scottish bakers classified their sweet yeasted biscuits as bread because then they could avoid paying taxes. No taxes on bread. So, in the bowl of an electric mixer where and oh by the way, we're using salted butter because that's traditional one and a half sticks of salted butter that is quarter of a pound plus an 8 of apoundand make sure the butter is at room temperature and into the butter add 3/ 4 of a cup of super fine sugar a shortbread has no leaveoning no eggs just butter sugar and flour when you mix the sugar and butter together scrape it down and then add your flour we're using both all purpose unbleached flour as well as rice flour rice flour gives that special sandy texture that sets these biscuits apart from all other biscuits and using the salted butter, well, that does balance the rich, delicious sweetness of the of the biscuit. Measure a level quarter of a cup of rice flour and one and three/ 4 cup of regular all-purpose unbleached flour. I happen to love shortbread and I make it every single year I actually make it more than once a year not just for holiday time but at holiday time it is a fantastic gift because it's decorative it's long lasting and by the way since so few ingredients are being used we try to find and use the finest ingredients the highest butter fat content in our butter so European style butter is probably best you can find now in the United States beautiful creamery butter that is high fat content. And we've chosen to bake our shortbread in this beautiful ceramic eight inch mold and it is decorated with thistles. As the story goes thistles are often depicted in shortbread moles because under the cover of darkness barefoot Viking invaders attempted to surprise the encamped Scotts on Scottish ground of course the Vikings stepped into a patch of thistles and let out cries that awakened the encamped Scotts who were then able to fight off their attackers. The national emblem of Scotland is the thistle and they are prickly. So, spray very generously the mold with non-stick vegetable spray and then this gets pressed firmly into your baking dish. This is going to be delicious and pretty and giftable. Now in years past I have made these in just pie tins so they're they're plain but they look really pretty on a Scottish breadboard. Shape them into individual shortbreads and wooden molds that are embossed with a beautiful design. And this has to be pressed to fill the mold evenly. So, start with your rubber spatula and then you can use the back of your measuring cup just this back is a good thing because it's flat. So, press this all the way around and you see how smooth it becomes and of course, at the same time, you're pressing the dough into the thistle design. Your oven should be preheated to 300 degrees because this is going to bake for an hour and 15 minutes. Shortbread is traditionally not browned. You want it to be pretty much the color it is right now. It actually looks like butter. Such a nice, rich, creamy color. There. So, that will go straight into the oven. Turn it just once or twice in the oven for one hour and 15 minutes. So, here is our shortbread. It's cool for 10 minutes. To unmold it, use a small spatula and just loosen all the way around the edges. This is essential. You can use a tip of a sharp knife or the spatula like this which is very thin and once you go around the edges, you can turn it out onto a board. I suggest because the mold is still a little hot that you just flip it over like that. And then lift carefully. There. Oh how beautiful. Now the oven is turned off if you like. You can then cut this into wedges using a sharp knife. Cut through the lines of the design. It smells like shortbread. It that is a unique flavour. Put all these wedges right back on a parchment lined baking sheet and put it into the turned off oven and let it dry completely for at least another hour you'll be so happy with this lovely recipe so once these have dried in the oven remove them put them on a wire rack just to cool completely you can pack them in tins cookie jars but put them out and enjoy one with a milky cup of tea just like your Scottish friends would do. I guarantee your host or hostess will be extremely pleased. Enjoy.

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