Easy shortbread recipe | Best homemade shortbread | Jamie Oliver (2024)

FAQs

What's the difference between Scottish shortbread and regular shortbread? ›

Traditional Scottish shortbread is a simple recipe made with sugar, butter, flour, and salt. Other shortbread styles will include leavening agents like baking powder and baking soda, which makes them crisp instead of crumbly like traditional Scottish shortbread.

Cornstarch provides the shortbread with structure, but its biggest job is keeping the cookies extra soft, tender, and light. I love adding a small amount to chocolate chip cookies too. Optional Coarse Sugar Topping: For an optional sparkly crunch on your shortbread wedges, add a sprinkle of coarse sugar before baking.

Put the flour, butter and sugar into a mixing bowl. Use your hands to combine the ingredients until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs, then squeeze until it comes together as a dough. On a lightly floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to ½ cm thick.

Beat the butter until soft, then beat in the sugar followed by the sifted flour. Start to bring the mixture together using your hands until it forms a paste. Lightly dust a surface with caster sugar and then roll it out until it is about 3mm thick. Cut the biscuits to the shape you want, we chose hearts.

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.

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.

Why do you put shortbread in the fridge before baking? Chilling the dough before baking will help the shortbread keep their shape while cooking.

Butter – You'll need salted butter that's at room temperature. It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour to bring the butter to room temperature, so make sure you give yourself enough time. If you don't have salted butter, unsalted butter will also work, simply add about ¼ teaspoon of salt to the cookie dough.

Shortbread is now Trefoils®! they're ABC cookies? always called them trefoils!

Why use unsalted butter in shortbread? ›

Unsalted butter is most commonly called for in baking recipes. Unsalted butter has a very neutral, creamy flavor—a great base for many baked goods. In baking, precise measurements are key for achieving the right flavor and texture. This even extends to small amounts of ingredients like salt.

The key to good shortbread is slow baking until it is pale golden and cooked through – if over baked, or baked too quickly, it will become slightly bitter in taste due to the 'burnt' butter.

Shortbread is similar to shortcake but doesn't include baking powder. Lots of rich butter gives shortbread a high fat content, resulting in a fine, crumbly texture. Shortcake and shortbread biscuits are delicious on their own, with fruit and cream, or simply topped with a delicate dusting of sugar.

Walkers Scottish cookies often have more ingredients than shortbread, including those that aid in leavening such as baking powder and baking soda. The leavening agents are responsible for the notable crunch and open texture of the Scottish cookie, which is not nearly as crumbly as shortbread.

Why do you poke holes in shortbread? The holes allow the moisture to escape during baking and more even heat distribution. This helps dry out and crisp up the cookies.

Shortbread is called short because of the traditional ratio of one part sugar to two parts butter that lends a high fat content to the dough. This yields a soft, buttery crumb that melts in your mouth, similar to short crust pastry.

Shortbread is traditionally formed into one of three shapes: one large circle divided into segments (“Petticoat Tails”); individual round biscuits (“Shortbread Rounds”); or a thick rectangular slab cut into “fingers.”

Irish Shortbread Is Distinct From Scottish Shortbread

Irish shortbread not only sometimes changes up the butter-to-sugar ratio (possibly going with 2/3 a cup of sugar to 1 cup of butter), but also adds cornstarch in place of some of the flour present in the traditional recipe.