Shortbread - Grandma Ross

I have been avoiding a rather close to my taste buds but controversial British topic, Shortbread.  A lot of Brits are highly opinionated about their shortbread, it ranks quite highly, if not at the very top, on the best ever biscuit leader board over here, and the Scottish are by far the most strongly opinionated about what makes the perfect shortbread, which is fair enough as they invented it.  But since there's a pretty thick layer of tartan under my Canadian skin I feel entitled to join in the discussion.

And my opinion was formed by the ideal standards set by my Scottish Granny, good shortbread should be thick and pale, no brown edges allowed.  I prefer individual biscuits made by cookie cutter shapes, rather than a large round that is broken into triangles or petticoat tails, I'll tolerate a bar that can be broken into fingers but I'd prefer the fingers to be baked individually.  While novelty shortbreads with nuts, chocolate, fruit, etc, are highly enjoyable, they are inferior to plain shortbread.  This is a biscuit where less is more, the beauty is in the delicate balance of basic ingredients that combine for a perfect flavour and texture.  Speaking of texture, they should be perfectly dry, bite or break to a smooth surface with a fine interior texture, and melt in your mouth.  I know there's a lot of people out there who think shortbread should be flaky when broken or the crumbs should feel like sugar-sand in your mouth, but I disagree they should feel smooth and melt.  And no dunking in your tea.

Sadly Grandma's recipe has been lost over the years but according to my Mom there was no big family secret for her recipe, just that she cut some of the wheat flour with both rice flour and corn flour and only used icing sugar and real butter - no substitutions on the butter, her magic was mostly in the execution.  Her shortbread was perfect little frilly circles, about half as thick as they were wide, pricked with a fork, and no darker out of the oven than they were when they went in, if it weren't for the fork marks you'd have trouble telling the top from the bottom they were so pale.  She was an expert. 

Many recipes I've looked up have a 3-2-1 ratio, three parts flour, two parts butter and 1 part sugar, they suggest replacing up to half the flour with rice or corn flour.  I have found that 2 parts butter creates a biscuit that spreads too much but that's my only departure from convention.

Along the way I learnt that rice flour keeps the shortbread white and cornflour makes the texture finer, and that the quality of butter is the biggest influence on the final taste of the biscuits.


Shortbread

Preheat the oven to 300^F (150^C)

Please note, - all these measurements are by WEIGHT not volume.
Cream together
3 3/4 oz unsalted butter, very very soft butter
2 oz icing sugar

Mix in by hand
6 oz mixed flour, a blend of: 3 oz plain (all purpose) flour, 1.5 oz corn flour, and 1.5 oz rice flour

Tip the dough out onto the counter and give it a very gentle knead to bring it all together if necessary, then roll it out to 1/2 inch thickness.  The dough shouldn't roll too easily or smoothly, there should be a few protest cracks around the edges, the more easily it rolls the more it will spread in the oven and we don't want spreading, we want chunky thick biscuits.  Also, don't chill the dough before baking, it will brown if you do.

Using a small fluted 1 1/2" cookie cutter cut out your cookies and transfer to a baking sheet.  Gather up the scraps once and re-roll and cut again with the cutter.  The second gathering of the scraps, for the third roll and cut, try to roll a rectangle and cut into fingers, shortbread is delicate and overworking will make it tough.

Bake for 20 - 30 minutes, depending on how big they are, until they are crispy dry but not browned, if they start to brown, lower the heat and bake for longer.

***Update:  I think there was a bit of a collective effort to compare shortbread cookies with the family this Christmas up in Kitimat.  I got pictures of Mom's, Allana's, and Gram's shortbread cookies.  Mom's are the three fork pokes, Allana's are the two pokes, and Gram made the diamond and smooth round - aren't they lovely?

I also thought I'd show the picture of Mom v Allana with the bottoms of the cookies.  Mom's are as pale on the bottom as on the top, see what I meant when I said the poke holes are how you tell which side is up, this comes from years and years of practice with your oven temperature.  Allana's are beige on the bottom but they aren't brown so it's still an effort to be proud of, even I'm not as good as Mom yet.