Shortbread

i had my first taste of shortbread during my years in glasgow from 1986-1991. shortbread is generally associated with and originated from Scotland. even though shortbreads are sold everywhere in england and throughout UK, i never failed to buy scottish made shortbread whenever we're on holidays in bonnie scotland.

History of shortbread

Shortbread is a classic Scottish dessert that consists of three basic ingredients: flour, sugar, and butter. This dessert resulted from medieval biscuit bread, which was a twice-baked, enriched bread roll dusted with sugar and spices and hardened into a hard, dry, sweetened biscuit called a rusk. Eventually, yeast from the original rusk recipe was replaced by butter, which was becoming more of a staple in the British Isles.
Despite the fact that shortbread was prepared during much of the 12th century, the refinement of shortbread was actually accredited to Mary, Queen of Scots in the 16th century. The name of one of the most famous and most traditional forms of shortbread, petticoat tails, were named by Queen Mary. This type of shortbread was baked, cut into triangular wedges, and flavored with caraway seeds. Shortbread is traditionally formed into 3 shapes - Petticoat tails, shortbread rounds (individual round biscuits) and fingers (thick rectangular slab cut into fingers). Shortbread was expensive and reserved as a luxury for special occasions such as Christmas, Hogmanay (Scottish New Year’s Eve), and weddings. In Shetland, it is traditional to break a decorated shortbread cake over the head of a new bride on the entrance of her new house.  - sourced from wikipedia.

Walkers Shortbread is the largest exporter of shortbread  http://www.walkersshortbread.com/home 

these (and the recipe that follows) were from big missy's DT class.

ingredients :

• 200g butter
• 100g caster sugar
• 150g plain flour
• 150g cornflour
• spare caster sugar to sprinkle on top
• optional : 50g chocolate chips/dried fruit

oven temperature : Gas 4/180 deg C

method:

1. preheat oven and grease the baking tray
2. cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
3. sieve in the flour and cornflour and add chocolate chips. knead thoroughly to form soft dough
4. shape into a large sausage and cut into 12 slices
5. carefully reshape the slices into circles and place on to the baking tray
6. bake for 20-25 minutes until pale golden colour
7. sprinkle with spare sugar

chocolate chip cookies

i made the dough on sunday but never got to bake it till yesterday afternoon; reason being - the dough was a bit soft, so i rolled and wrapped it and put it in the fridge.

the recipe was by the reknowned chef, Anthony Worrall Thompson, got it from bbc.co.uk/food.

Ingredients

• 350g/12¼oz unsifted flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 225g/8oz butter
• 175g/6¼oz caster sugar
• 175g/6¼oz soft brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 350g/12¼oz dark chocolate, crumbled

Preparation method

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5.
2. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt.
3. In another bowl, combine the butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract until creamy. Beat in the eggs. Gradually beat in the flour mixture. Stir in the chocolate.
4. Split the pliable dough into two halves, rolling each out into sausage shapes, approximately 5cm/2in in diameter. Wrap them in cling film and transfer to the refrigerator until ready to use.
5. When you are ready to bake the cookies, simply cut the log into slices 2cm/¾in thick and lay on a baking tray, widely spaced apart. Bake for 9-11 minutes.
6. Serve.

my notes :

• i didnt use the block butter simply because i couldnt be bothered waiting for it to soften at room temperature. i normally use Stork Margarine (suitable for baking) in my cakes.
• you can use chocolate chips to replace  dark chocolate (dark chocolate contains minimum 35% cocoa solids; i normally use Tesco/Sainsbury's Belgian Dark Chocolate with minimum 70% solid)
• i had to add a bit of flour to the dough because it was too soft even to roll into sausage shape.
• need to spread it wide apart; can put 9 cookies on a large tray.
• enjoy them with coffee or earl grey tea...