BAKING PROJECT

This is, by far, the easiest cookie recipe ever.  A good one to teach your kid.  All you need to make a good Scottish shortbread is good butter, sugar and flour.

This recipe is taken from Food.com. I doubled the recipe and here’s what I used :

400 gm all-purpose flour
100 gm castor sugar
227 gm salted butter

The butter must be very cold, so I just took it out from the fridge and cut it into smaller pieces.  Combine the butter and sugar, and cream for about 3 minutes on medium speed.  Then slowly add the flour.  The traditional method is to knead the dough by hand for about 7 minutes.  There seems to be some conflicting school of thoughts here, the modern technique states not to over mix the dough.  While, the traditional Scottish method says the longer you knead the dough, the better it will taste.

I think the whole point is not to overheat the butter in the dough, so I just mixed my dough in the mixer for about 3 minutes.  Take it out of the bowl and then flatten it on a baking sheet.  In the mean time, preheat your oven to 180C.

Roll the dough between the baking sheet to about 1/2 inch thickness.

Use a sharp knife to cut out the shapes.  And don’t forget to poke it with a fork.    Use a spatula to ferry the cookies to your baking tray.   The traditional method is to bake the whole rolled dough and after baking,  the cookies are then cut into rectangular or wedge shape.   But I prefer to cut it before baking to make sure the edges looks nice and the holes are evenly spaced.

Bake at 180C for about 25 minutes.  At half time, rotate the oven tray to ensure even baking.  Once you see the edges has a hint of brown, the cookies are done.  Once cool, store in airtight containers.

These shortbread cookies are so delicious, remember it all comes down to the butter you use.  Make sure its the expensive type, ok ?   You can have these cookies on its own, or dunk in coffees (like me) or in chocolate sauce.  The sugar used in the recipe is adequate, do not reduce it any further.  Make a lot of these cookies and watch them disappear in seconds.   Yum..