Small Luxuries in Troubled Times

I thought I would do a blog post, which I haven't done for ages although I'm always meaning to do an update, stuff just gets in the way, you know how it is. Well now with this Covid 19 business I'm finding a bit more time on my hands than I'm used to, and having almost caught up with the weeding and planting, I'm moving onto baking (anything to avoid cleaning and dusting...not to mention bleach spraying everything that keeps still long enough to within an inch of it's life....)

So here's a nice recipe for Shortbread that most people will have the ingredients for in the house. And simple as it is, you just can't seem to buy proper shortbread any more, if you ever could. You just have to make it yourself.

When I say proper shortbread I mean the kind that melts in your mouth, and has a buttery richness even though it's just a plain old biscuit. I don't like a massive amount of crunch in shortbread, some recipes call for added rice flour or semolina and so on, but I demur. Simplicity is the word here.

You can cook this in a big round in the traditional way, marked into triangles and stabbed with a fork but I think it comes out best if you can be bothered to roll it out and cut shapes, they need to be fairly thick, it's shortbread after all, and it's easier to get an even bake that way.

For about 30 generously sized biscuits

300gr 10oz Plain flour
50 gr 2 oz Cornflour (Cornstarch in US)
250gr 8 oz Butter
75 gr 3 oz caster sugar
half teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream the butter and sugar - I use a stand mixer, -until light and creamy, or cream with a wooden spoon, and elbow grease.


Add the flour and cornflour and continue mixing gently until roughly combined
Turn onto floured board and form into a dough, roll out quite thickly and cut your shapes.


Bake for 20 minutes 160c 300F or on the lower shelf of the Aga with the cold plain shelf above. As always with biscuits, don't over cook them, you want the merest trace of gold, certainly not brown, and then take them out. Cool on a wire tray.

They also freeze really well and so are handy to have in for unexpected visitors, as they defrost almost instantly, certainly by the time you've answered the door, and said Hello Vicar do come in, lovely weather isn't it, do have a seat, would you like some tea and biscuits.





And with the bits left over you can either re-roll for extra biscuits or use as the base for a Millionaire's Shortbread for which I make no apology for revisiting my old recipe here

I also make these as an accompaniment for strawberries and cream, maybe rolled out a bit thinner,  and as such they add a nice home made touch. Makes an ordinary bowl of summer fruit and cream seem like you've gone to a lot of trouble, when you haven't really.  And in troubled times small luxuries are well, a luxury. So win-win.


Stay safe, stay home, bake something.