Tags
baking, biscuits, butter, chocolate, chocolate chip, cookies, cooking, dessert, food, mado, shortbread, sugar, sweet, vanilla, vegetarian
Plain and chocolate chipped shortbread
I don’t know how you like your shortbread. Maybe you like it with a little crunch and grit, or perhaps you think that it should be butter in biscuit form. This recipe very much produces the latter, using most of two blocks of butter that is sweetened with sugar, balanced with salt, and just set with a mixture of two flours. The high proportion of cornflour makes a particularly light and yielding biscuit.
The result is a biscuit which melts in the mouth.
Because there’s so much butter in them, you will have to be a little careful: don’t let the butter get too warm and sloppy, or the biscuit will be a mess. It should be easily spreadable but not on the verge of melting. You’d think, knowing that it’s made from such huge amounts of butter, you would be put off eating it entirely. Unfortunately not.
I also added some chocolate chips to half of the mixture because I don’t know what’s good for me. Oh dear.
SHORTBREAD (Via the marvellous Lorna Yee.)
Makes an indecent amount of shortbread – fills a standard 33 x 23 cm baking tray (13 x 9 inch quarter sheet) or thereabouts.
- Ingredients
- 450g good unsalted butter, soft but not sloppy.
- 1 ½ teaspoons sea salt (or ¾ teaspoon fine table salt)
- 125g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
- 500g plain flour
- 150g cornflour
- 2 vanilla pods, or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (optional)
- 125g-200g chocolate chips or finely chopped chocolate (optional)
Instructions
- Line and generously grease a 33 x 23 cm (13 x 9 inch) baking tray. Preheat the oven to 160°C.
- Put the butter, salt, and sugar into a bowl. Beat steadily at medium speed until it is really pale and creamy (see photo) – it will take a while; nearly 10 minutes with a hand-mixer. When it’s creamed, beat in the vanilla extract or scraped out vanilla seeds if using, too.
- Carefully add the two flours to the butter and combine until you have a crumbly mixture. Add chocolate chips if using, folding and pressing them in. The dough will be clumpy rather than one kneadable piece; leave it that way.
- Scatter all of the dough into the tray so it forms a roughly equal layer. With cool hands, press mixture gently so it is firm and even. Rinse your hands in cold water if they get too warm and sticky.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes until the dough is dry on top, and slightly puffed and pale gold at the edges. Leave to cool in the tin, then refrigerate if your kitchen is especially warm. When it’s completely cold and firm, sprinkle over some more sugar, slice into fingers and serve.
