Strawberry Shortbread

I think shortbread has to be my favourite biscuit, they are buttery and crumbly, a perfect combination. The strawberries provide a little extra sweetness and bite to these moorish morsels. Makes 12 fingers

Ingredients:

1lb fresh strawberries

6 oz room temperature butter

3 oz sugar

6 oz all purpose flour

3 oz semolina/ pasta flour

Parchment paper

Baking sheet

9 inch square loose bottom pan, or equivalent

Pre heat oven to 170℉

Place the parchment on the baking sheet.

Wash and hull the strawberries.

Slice the strawberries 1/4 inch thick and lay them onto the parchment paper.

Bake for 1 hr 15 minutes.  Turn the strawberries over and bake for an additional 1hr 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, the smaller slices will be ready now, the larger slices may require an additional 30 minutes. The slices should not be completely dehydrated, they should still be a little tacky to the touch and soft. They will continue to cook in the shortbread dough.

Heat oven to 300℉

Dice the strawberries and set aside, there should be roughly 4 oz of strawberries now.

Combine the butter and sugar until creamed together, add in the flours, and beat until just incorporated.

 

Add in the strawberries and beat a little more. Work the dough with your hands until smooth.

Press the dough into pan, push it all the way to the edges, and make sure it’s an even thickness, about 1/2 inch, you can use a smaller rolling pin or smooth glass to do this.

Prick the dough all over with a fork and pop it on the centre of the lower oven rack, bake for 55 minutes.

Remove from the oven and slice into 12 even fingers and sprinkle with extra sugar.

When it’s cool remove from the pan and devour.

Here’s the printable recipe – Strawberry Shortbread

Fig, Hazelnut and Orange Shortbread

4 oz Unsalted butter

2 oz Sugar

2 oz All purpose flour

2 oz rice flour or corn flour for a grainier crumb

2 oz Hazelnut meal

¼ tsp salt

2 oz dried figs

Zest of 1 orange

1 Tbsp orange juice

1 oz Raw sugar

Pre heat the oven to 300℉

Cut the butter into small cubes and put in a mixing bowl or food processor. Add to this the sugar, flours, hazelnut meal and salt.  Using your fingers combine these ingredients until little pea size balls form,or blitz until combined. Dice the figs, add that and the orange zest to the crumb mix. Pour in the orange juice and stir with a knife and gently squeeze the mix to bring it together. You may need to add a tiny amount of cold water. Be careful not to drown the mix, it is meant to be crumbly.

Bring the mixture together into a log shape and wrap in plastic warp. Shape the log so that it is approximately 2×2 inches square and 6 inches long. Twist the ends of the plastic wrap to help obtain the shape. Gently flatten each side of the log on the counter to make a rectangle.

Chill in the refrigerator for 45 minutes.

Unwrap the log, roll in the raw sugar pressing lightly. Slice the log  into 1/4 thick slices and put onto a parchment lined baking sheet,

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes.

Enjoy F.

Coconut Sugar Shortbread

I only wish I could take full credit for this recipe. Alas, this is a very slight modification of a delicious, tender, crumbly, more-ish recipe that my friend Cathy gave me. I subbed in coconut sugar for regular sugar. It definitely deserves to be shared.

I’ve chosen to make sweet little linzer cookies from the dough, but you could use any shaped cutter or even roll it a little thicker and bake as a slab.

Ingredients
9oz / 260g all purpose flour
1 1/2 oz / 40g rice flour
3 1/2 oz / 100g coconut sugar or regular sugar
7oz / 200g butter at room temperature
Raspberry jam

Pre heat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
Put all of the ingredients into the bowl of a kitchen aid and mix together. You may need to finish by squeezing it together with your hands.
The dough is a little sticky so roll it out on a silicone mat with some plastic wrap on top or between two pieces of plastic wrap.
Roll to a thinness of 1/8″.
Chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.
Cut out desired shapes. I used a heart shape linzer cookie cutter and got 18 top and 18 bottoms from my initial roll. I formed the scraps into a ball and stuck back in the fridge for another day.
Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes on the bottom rack.
Remove and cool on a wire rack.
When completely cold, invert the bottom cookie, spread 1tsp of jam on each cookie and pop the top on.
Repeat for each cookie and then dust with a sprinkling of icing sugar.

Share with your loves and enjoy. F