Shortbread

For me cooking is about pleasure and adapting recipes. I rarely follow a recipe except when it comes to baking, yet I sometimes feel the need to tweak it.
Here is the basic recipe for shortbreads and variations that I have made depending on the season and my mood.


Ingredients for 24 fingers - 15min prep - 20 to 30 min baking


100gr Sugar
200gr Cold Butter cut into pieces
300gr Flour
Extra Caster sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven at 160C/325F
2. Mix sugar and flour together
3. Rub in all the butter with the tips of your fingers. You should get a sand type of mixture.
4. Knead mixture until you start getting a dough
5. Press down in a 20 cm square tin. If you do not have this type of tin, don't filp out. Any tin will do as long as as the dough is about 1cm to 1.5cm thick.
6. Bake in the oven for for 20 to 30 mins until golden pale. Once out of the oven sprinkle with caster sugar - just a light coating- and then cut into fingers or triangles and leave to cool in the tin.

Twists on the Recipe.

• Citrus kick: Grate lemon and/or orange zestes into the sand mixture.
• Vanilla: Split lengthways a vanilla pod. Scrape seeds and add to sand mixture. You can put the leftover pod in a sugar jar.
• Chocolate: Add 2 tablespoon of good cocoa to the flour and then grate an orange.
• Christmassy: Add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon to the flour and then add some chopped preserved ginger in the sand mixture.

I could go on forever on all the twists but I'm sure you will find the one you like best.

Bon Ap!