Lightly grease the sides of and line a 9″ x 12″ traybake tin with parchment paper allowing a 2-3” overhang
In a large bowl, combine ½ cup sugar, the orange zest and rub together with your fingers to release the orange oils into the sugar. Add in the flour, semolina, rice flour, and salt. Whisk together to further combine
Add in the cubed butter and rub together with your fingertips, or a pastry cutter, until the mixture is just beginning to bind together. Every so often do a quarter turn of the bowl to make sure you’re using all the dry mixture. You’ll want a texture somewhere between breadcrumbs and damp sand before you stop. Be wary of overworking the butter into the mixture – you want to avoid a dough that is feels slimey from the butter melting too much into the dry ingredients
Add the chocolate chips and gently fold through the butter crumb mixture
Tip the crumb mixture into your prepared tin and press the dough so that it forms a solid, even layer. Level the surface with the back of a spoon or measuring cup, making sure the mixture is evenly spread and level
Refrigerate for 30 mins minimum
Preheat your oven to 325°F
Remove the chilled dough from your fridge and using a knife, or pizza cutter, score the shortbread into 24 rectangular pieces (2 cuts by 7 cuts) taking care not to actually cut the full way through the dough layer
Bake the dough for 30- 35 minutes or until a very pale golden brown, and deeper golden brown at the edges
Leave rest for 5 minutes, then cut with a knife, or pizza cutter, at the score lines you previously made, cut to the bottom of the pan to complete the cut the full way through
Dust with the remaining fine sugar and leave the full slab of shortbread to cool in the tin for 15 minutes. Carefully lift the fingers out of the tin with a palette knife or the parchment paper overhang and finish cooling on a wire rack
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat softened butter until creamy. Add confectioners’ sugar and beat until well combined and smooth
Add egg yolks, vanilla extract and beat just until fully combined
Add flour, ground coffee, salt, and beat at low speed just until flour is incorporated but before dough forms a ball
Turn out dough onto a floured surface and use your hands to bring dough together. Divide dough in half and roll into 1½-inch-wide logs. Wrap logs in cling wrap, and refrigerate until firm, 1 to 2 hours
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper, or silicone making mats
Unwrap logs and cut into ¼-inch-thick rounds. Place rounds 1 inch apart on prepared pans
Bake until just lightly browned around the edges, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool on pans for 5 minutes. Remove from pans and let cool completely on wire racks
Place chocolate in a large heatproof bowl. In a small saucepan, bring cream and butter to a simmer over medium heat. Pour hot cream mixture over chocolate. Let stand for 1 minute; stir until a smooth, silky ganache forms. Let stand until thickened, 30 minutes to 1 hour
Using a piping bag fitted with a small round piping tip, pipe a round of ganache onto flat side of half of cookies. Place remaining cookies, flat side down, on top of ganache. Let stand until ganache is set, 1 to 2 hours
Unfilled cookies will keep for 2 to 3 days. Once they are filled with ganache, the cookies are best served within a day
These are a perfect bite for afternoon tea. Buttery, deliciously crumbly shortbread laced with floral Earl Grey and spiked with the zesty burst of sunshine from a lemon glaze- they are practically perfect for an al fresco tea break in the sunshine.
This is my tried, tested recipe as approved by my Scottish husband! Whilst traditional shortbread is a straightforward (and tasty!) mix of three simple ingredients – butter; flour and sugar, here I’ve added ingredients that I’ve found amplify a shortbread’s more desirable properties. The combination of semolina, rice flour and cornstarch elevate it’s crumbly moreishness while at the same time preventing it from becoming a chalky, dry shard.
I usually cut mine into the no-fuss finger shapes – easy to handle whilst sipping, whilst maximizing the dough amount. Using a cookie cutter is possible but may result in some surplus offcuts. If you choose this route a handy hint is to stir the offcuts into ice-cream. Even more to enjoy!
Check out this #recipe for Earl Grey & Lemon Shortbread
In a food processor, combine the floor and the loose tea leaves. Pulse 4-5 times until leaves are mixed finer into the floor
In a large bowl combine the flour/ tea mixture, semolina, rice flour, cornstarch, sugar and salt. Whisk together to further combine
Add in the cubed butter and rub together with your fingertips until the mixture is just beginning to bind together. Every so often do a quarter turn of the bowl to make sure you’re using all the dry mixture. You’ll want a texture somewhere between breadcrumbs and damp sand before you stop. Be wary of overworking the butter into the mixture – you want to avoid a dough that feels slimy from the butter melting too much into the dry ingredients
Tip the crumb mixture into your prepared tin and press the dough so that it forms a solid layer. Level the surface with the back of a spoon or measuring cup, making sure the mixture is evenly spread and uniform. Prick all over with a fork
With a knife or pizza cutter score the shortbread into 24 rectangular pieces (2 cuts by 7 cuts) taking care not to cut the full way through the compressed crumb
Refrigerate for 30 mins minimum
Preheat your oven to 325°F
Remove the shortbread from the fridge and bake for about 35 minutes or until a very pale golden brown.
Remove from the oven and after 5 minutes rest in the tin, cut fully through the baked shortbread with a knife or pizza cutter at the score lines you previously made
Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes. Carefully lift the fingers out of the tin with a palette knife or the parchment paper overhang and finish cooling on a wire rack
While the shortbread cools, prepare the lemon glaze
To make the Lemon Glaze
In a bowl or jug combine the powdered sugar and lemon zest. Add the fresh lemon juice to your personal taste (2 -3 teaspoons)
Make sure the shortbread pieces are fully cooled before glazing. Dip or pipe the glaze onto the shortbread pieces to your personal preference. (I usually transfer mine to a piping bag and drizzle lightly over the shortbread)
Valentine’s Day. Love it or hate it, there’s no getting away from it- even here I’m afraid. BUT I am hoping to give you something a little bit different in the recipe department. Heart-shaped and pastel-pink hued? Yes. However that’s where the predictability ends- or at least I’m hoping you think so too.
These started inception as…well…I was hankering for something sweet in between grocery deliveries. I wish I could come up with a more romantic, Earth-shattering epiphany than that but alas, no. My recipe for shortbread has been tried, approved and is a breeze to rustle up in a hurry. The instantly seductive baking phrase comes to mind, ” Quick and with minimal ingredients“. So in an effort to kill two birds with one stone, I got to thinking of doing a Valentine’s Day recipe post on shortbread.
So how can I make it “Valentine-sy”? Heart-shaped chocolate chip cookies just didn’t cut it for me. and so the mental gears turned. I had recently stocked up the pantry of some baking ingredients. “Livin’ the lockdown” dream has me currently baking every couple days- can we say “Therapy Baking”? Anyway as part of a restock I had some crystalised (candied) ginger going spare. I have a love/ hate relationship with this ingredient. Whilst I absolutely LOVE it’s mellow, slow-burning, sweet heat (especially in combination with dark chocolate) and so that was at the front of my mind. Pink peppercorns was my initial selection for the next feature ingredient. My worry, however, was that it falls slightly into the territory of over-familiarity, bordering on a go-to spicy contributor to desserts. Sichuan peppercorns are ideal to fill this gap, lending their signature tongue-tingling sensation as an extra boon without the visual fanfare.
That, for me, was enough going on internally. I try to limit the flavors within a bake in order to stop them becoming a jumbled cacophony on the tongue. I was still thinking of how to finish the flavor experience that I had in mind. And of course- rose hits me! Now I don’t mean some random pensioner walking by whacks me with her Kate Spade tote- I mean Rose the flavor. Sure it can be a tricky ingredient to use but when handled properly it can really bring a decadent statement to a bake. And let’s face it (at the risk of being slightly predictable) what’s Valentine’s Day with roses in some form? I’ve combined it here with an understated addition of white chocolate to help compliment the heat from the spices baked into the shortbread, stopping it from sitting on your tongue too long and dominating your palette.
Finishing and decorating your baked shortbread cookie is entirely at your own discretion. Leave them plain and simple, or as I did add a few choice sprinkles and some edible glitter themed in the spirt of the amorous season. See? I can do pretty.
Whatever you choose to do, whether it’s make these and share them, or keep the all to yourself I hope you enjoy them.
Stay safe, and mask up.
*Updated to include Chocolate version as featured on Food Network Canada’s “Great Chocolate Showdown”.
Makes 16 heart cookies (I use a 2″ heart shape cutter), or 24 if cut into fingers
Ingredients
1 2/3 cups AP Flour
1/3 Semolina
2 Tablespoons Rice Flour (if you’re making a Chocolate shortbread version sub here with cocoa powder)
1 1/2 Tablespoons Cornstarch
1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons fine sugar, divided
1/2 tspn Kosher salt
1 cup/ 2 sticks salted butter, cold and cubed
1/2 cup crystalized (candied) ginger, chopped in to small pieces
2 tspn ground ginger
2 tspn Sichuan peppercorns, toasted and crushed/ ground
To decorate
3oz White chocolate, broken into pieces (use Dark chocolate for Chocolate shortbread version)
1 tspn coconut oil
1/2 tspn rosewater (omit for Chocolate shortbread version)
Candy sprinkles, dragees to suit
Method
Shortbread Cookies
Lightly grease and line a 9″ x 12″ traybake tin
In a large bowl combine the flour, semolina, rice flour, cornstarch, sugar, salt, round ginger and ground Sichuan peppercorns. Whisk together to further combine
Add in the cubed butter and rub together with your fingertips, or a pastry cutter, until the mixture is just beginning to bind together. Every so often do a quarter turn of the bowl to make sure you’re using all the dry mixture. You’ll want a texture somewhere between breadcrumbs and damp sand before you stop. Be wary of overworking the butter into the mixture – you want to avoid a dough that is feels slimey from the butter melting too much into the dry ingredients
Add in the chopped crystalized (candied) ginger and stir lightly to combine
Tip the crumb mixture into your prepared tin and press the dough so that it forms a solid layer. Level the surface with the back of a spoon or measuring cup, making sure the mixture is evenly spread and uniform.
Refrigerate for 30 mins minimum
Preheat your oven to 325°F
Remove the chilled dough from your fridge and using your cookie cutter mark 16 heart shapes by pushing the cutter roughly halfway into the dough. You don’t have to go the full way through to the bottom of the pan. If you’re not making heart-shaped cookies, you can use a knife or pizza cutter score the shortbread into 24 rectangular pieces (2 cuts by 7 cuts) taking care not to actually cut the full way through
Bake the dough for 30- 35 minutes or until a very pale golden brown, and deeper golden brown at the edges
Remove from the oven and using your heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut fully through the baked shortbread . The dough in the cutter should come away, giving you a heart-shaped cookie. On a wire cooling rack carefully push out the cookie. Repeat and leave to cool fully*
(If you’re not using a cookie cutter simply cut with a knife or pizza cutter at the score lines you previously made, cut the the bottom of the pan to complete the cut the full way through. Leave the full slab of shortbread to cool in the tin for 15 minutes. Carefully lift the fingers out of the tin with a palette knife or the parchment paper overhang and finish cooling on a wire rack)
To decorate
In a small bowl, set over a pan of simmering water, combine the white chocolate, coconut oil and rose water
Heat over a gentle simmer, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate is fully melted and all ingredients are combined
Turn off the heat and carefully remove the bowl
Dip the shortbread hearts or bars into the melted chocolate and set on a rack or tray lined with baking parchment or silpat mat. (If you find you’re chocolate is becoming stiff and hard to work with, place the bowl of chocolate back into the hot water pan and leave to re-melt to a more workable state
Whilst the chocolate is still setting finish decorating in your preferred way
Because of the oil in the chocolate, fully decorated cookies should be stored in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to a week. Separate layers of cookies using baking parchment. To serve remove the cookies about 15-20mind before serving – or just eat straight from the fridge!
So I wanted a bar. But it had to be the right kind. I had previously made Hello Dolly Bars, or as they’re also known as Magic Cookies Bars, but I had found them too sweet and gloopy. Maybe I added too much condensed milk caramel or not enough dry ingredients? Either way I was far from happy with them and the resulting bars were deliciously mutated into ice cream topping instead. “Waste not, want not” etc etc.
However like a dog with a bone I couldn’t (okay I WOULDN’T) acknowledge failure. There were also a few tweaks I wanted to try. The crumb base layer of the original cookie bar was far too flimsy IMO. I wanted something with more stability and which would carry itself and the topping. Well what better way to go than with shortbread? Simplifying my Golden Coconut Shortbread with a wholewheat flour was the ideal solution. The nuttiness of the wholewheat grains perfectly complementing the oats I would add.
Another tweak was based on a pet peeve of mine – wet cookie bars. I don’t mean a bake that’s underbaked and soggy. It’s the excess of wet topping ingredients that spoils it for me. And so in with the aforementioned oats! Insider tip here- I’ve found that if a recipe calls for using jumbo rolled oats, using a mix of jumbo oats and quick oats gives a much better result. The smaller quick oats fill in the gaps and voids made between the larger oat flakes and you end up with more oaty bang for your buck. It’s a win!
The quick “caramel” of butter and sugar works as a good binder here but if it’s one thing I’m a sucker for it’s chewy bite (Samoas are my WEAKNESS!) and with that I added in some caramel pieces. These would bake to perfectly chewy morsels adding some extra interest to bars. A little fiddly work is involved here in cutting the caramels into smaller pieces but it’s absolutely worth it.
So they’re you have it- “Hey Dolly Bars”. Not quite traditional “Hello Dolly Bars” but baked bars with a lil extra something and sass.
Ingredients
Shortbread Base
1 2/3 cup Wholewheat Flour
1/3 cup Semolina
2 Tablespoons Rice Flour
1 1/2 Tablespoons Cornstarch
1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons fine sugar, divided
1/2 Teaspoon Kosher salt
1 cup/ 2 sticks salted butter, cold and cubed
Oat Topping
1/2 cup salted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
3 large eggs, beaten together
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups jumbo rolled oats
1 cup quick oats
1/2 cup shredded coconut, sweetened or unsweetened
1/2 cup toffee bits apx (I use 12 Kraft caramels, chopped in half, then each half chopped in to 4)
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Method
Shortbread base
Lightly grease and line a 9″ x 12″ traybake tin
In a large bowl combine the flour, semolina, rice flour, cornstarch, sugar and salt. Whisk together to further combine
Add in the cubed butter and rub together with your fingertips until the mixture is just beginning to bind together. Every so often do a quarter turn of the bowl to make sure you’re using all the dry mixture. You’ll want a texture somewhere between breadcrumbs and damp sand before you stop. Be wary of overworking the butter into the mixture – you want to avoid a dough that is feels slimey from the butter melting too much into the dry ingredients
Tip the crumb mixture into your prepared tin and press the dough so that it forms a solid layer. Level the surface with the back of a spoon or measuring cup, making sure the mixture is evenly spread and uniform. Prick all over with a fork
Refrigerate for 30 mins minimum
Preheat your oven to 325°F
Remove the shortbread from the fridge and bake for about 30 minutes
Remove from the oven and allow to set side to cool in the tin while you make the topping
Oat topping
Increase oven temperature to 350°F
Prepare the topping by melting the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook the butter, stirring often, until it melts completely. Continue to heat. The butter will start to foam up a bit, reduce the temperature if needed. Watch carefully as lightly browned specks begin to form at the bottom of the pan, and the foam starts to turn brown in spots. Smell the butter; it should have a nutty aroma
Remove the pan and off the heat, stir in the granulated sugar, brown sugar and salt. The mixture will be thick. Let it cool for a few minutes
Whisk in the eggs and vanilla until the mixture is well-combined. Transfer to a large bowl
Stir in the oats, quick oats, shredded coconut, toffee bits and chocolate chips. Mix all the ingredients to combine well. Spread the mixture evenly over the shortbread crust.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until the bars are set around the edges and the middle is a little jiggly. They’ll firm up as they cool.
Once fully cooled remove from the tin and slice in to 18 pieces (3 x 6 bars)
These bars will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days
So I wanted a bar. But it had to be the right kind. I had previously made Hello Dolly Bars, or as they’re also known as Magic Cookies Bars, but I had found them too sweet and gloopy. Maybe I added too much condensed milk caramel or not enough dry ingredients? Either way I was far from happy with them and the resulting bars were deliciously mutated into ice cream topping instead. “Waste not, want not” etc etc.
Crumbs In My Beard 