Shortbread.at last!

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lythande1, Dec 3, 6:06pm
I like James Martins shortbread, little flour, lots of cornflour and icing sugar.
Easy to make.

twelve12, Dec 3, 8:16pm
The "beautiful biscuits" AWW cookbook has a whole section on shortbreads. It's a really good cookbook all round actually, highly recommend.

nauru, Dec 4, 7:12am
I always use the following recipe from my Bero book (UK)
250 g (9 oz) plain Flour
75 g (3 oz) caster sugar
175 g (6 oz) butter
I put all the ingrdeients into my food processor and process until a dough forms. Roll out and cut into either fingers or rounds. Bake @ 160C for 15 minutes until golden. Cool on wire cake rack.

wheelz, Dec 4, 10:57pm
Rice flour in biscuits is fantastic!
Discovered this in making a recipe for Passionfruit Butter Biscuits.
IMO Just makes a superior biscuit.

nauru, Dec 5, 6:57am
I used some rice flour in my Christmas mince pie pastry today, results are good.

jhan, Dec 5, 6:42pm
Thanks for the savory shortbread recipe, I made it yesterday.

uli, Dec 6, 2:59am
bump for shortbread season

korbo, Dec 6, 6:52pm
I have a bag of coconut flour, wondering if I could use it in shortbread.
goodness knows why I have it.

uli, Dec 6, 9:30pm
you need a specific recipe - coconut flour is notoriously difficult to bake with without a recipe made for it.
It absorbs a lot of liquid, so you need to know exactly how much you need of what. google "baking with coconut flour", maybe you find something that suits.

socram, Dec 7, 2:45am
Saturday Herald has some shortbread recipes. I have never made any, but always thought I'd add orange zest. Lo and behold, the Herald recipe today uses lemon zest or orange zest.

aktow, Dec 7, 2:37pm
no it does not, if you are going to use the word traditional then look it up,, every recipe i have for Scottish shortbread has normal flour , not rice flour. i know some people are using it now but it was not used in the past.

valentino, Dec 7, 7:57pm
You will note that if you bing or google, a number of Scottish Shortbreads do use Rice Flour instead of Cornflour but still use normal flour.

kay141, Dec 7, 8:04pm
They do now but the traditional ones did not. Rice flour is a new adaption.

valentino, Dec 7, 8:15pm
http://www.scottish-at-heart.com/scottish-shortbread-recipe.html

Pam initially noted Rice flour against Cornflour re sweetness.

kay141, Dec 7, 8:23pm
That does not make it traditional. 50 years ago, there was no such product as rice flour.

The recipe for shortbread, like most has changed over the years to suit tastes. Like a lot of things it is now sweeter than it used to be, and is no longer just the butter, sugar and flour mix of the old recipe.

davidt4, Dec 7, 8:37pm
Note the inclusion of rice flour in this recipe.

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/Scottish-Shortbread/

valentino, Dec 7, 9:16pm
To me when someone noted as such then it is as one sees it.

Sure, many years ago it may be different to today, actually about 99% of recipes today never existed a very long time ago but when various Scottish sites note their traditional shortbread containing certain ingredients then normally one goes along with it and continue as such.

Sure, there is always the odd one who will buck this trend, so be it but I see things along with many other whom sees it the same.

Personally I do not use Rice Flour in my shortbreads but that is not the thing. It was how one noted the sweetness but end up being questioned re use of "Rice Flour" in the Traditional sense.

Davidt4 added another website backing the use of Rice Flour.

Cheers

twelve12, Dec 7, 11:07pm
There's one of those womans weekly cookbooks called "Beautiful Biscuits". It has a whole section on shortbread. and some of them are very good.

cgvl, Dec 7, 11:11pm
actually rice flour was available 50+ years ago as my mother has a couple of recipes that use it BUT it was very expensive so not often used and substituted with either cornflour or plain flour. Eg belgium biscuit recipe circa 1960 used half rice flour half plain flour (Edmonds cookbook).

rarogal, Dec 8, 4:43am
It's taken me many years, but have at last produced some great shortbread. I've posted the recipe below as originally written. I beat the butter and sugar for 10mins. The mixture was a little sticky so I used some extra rice flour to shape into logs and chilled for 15 mins before slicing. My oven took 25mins.

Soften a pound of butter and beat with 1 cup caster sugar. Sift together 4 cups plain flour, 1/2 cup rice flour,1/2 tsp mixed spice. Mix altogether. I roll in to two logs and chill to firm then slice logs and place each biscuit on baking paper allowing room to spread. You can also roll mixture out between two sheets of grease proof and use cookie cutters. Bake 20 mins or so ( till slightly golden ) 150 degrees in oven.
FROM RAYOZ

cookessentials, Dec 8, 8:07am
I only ever use rice flour in shortbread, it is the more traditional version and makes lovely shortbread. Thanks for sharing.

rarogal, Dec 8, 9:31am
Can you tell me. does shortbread freeze well?

nauru, Dec 8, 10:03am
Yes, it freezes fine. Both the dough and cooked shortbread

aktow, Dec 8, 10:24am
more traditional where,

rarogal, Dec 8, 12:21pm
TY Nauru!