Do you remember the very first time you had shortbread? With your first bite how it crumbled in your mouth and melted into smooth and buttery deliciousness. Once a favourite treats in Scotland for royals, shortbread is famous for its smooth texture and creamy flavour. Some brands of shortbread are so good, that we can’t even imagine making such quality shortbread by ourselves. Did you know you can make shortbread, just like the one from bakeries or some overseas brands, right at home? Here are a few tips for making light, creamy and crumbly shortbread, along with a recipe to help you make some yourself.

Learn How To Deal With The Butter

When you bake, it is important to know how to mix your butter for every different recipe. Some items require you to melt it, like for cookies, and for others, you need room temperature butter.

For the shortbread, you require plenty of butter, so some people melt the butter before adding it to the flour. Try using room temperature butter instead. This helps your shortbread to retain its shape.

Another method you can follow is cutting the butter into small pieces and adding it to the flour by hand or a stand mixer. This also helps set the texture of your shortbread and makes it more light and crumbly.

Butter is a crucial ingredient in making shortbread, so if you don’t eat butter follow this recipe and make Vegan Shortbread Cookies.

Use Salted Butter

For some recipes, you need to use unsalted butter to “control the salt” in your baked goods. Shortbreads are pleasantly salty yet have a mild sweetness. It is savoury and sweet, so you have to find the right balance.

Using salted butter is great for baked goods, especially for those which are traditionally known as sweet. You can prevent over-salting by tasting the dough and adding accordingly. Salt is a natural preservative, so it will extend the shelf life of your homemade shortbread.

Combine Your Butter & Sugar

Most bakers run the risk of over-mixing while adding sugar to their dough. When the dough is overmixed you increase the gluten content in the dough and ruin the texture of your shortbread by making it chewy.

However, there is a way to avoid these mishaps and make your shortbread taste better. We often need to mix the sugar and butter for baking items like cakes, cookies, brownies, etc. Instead of cutting the butter into the bread, we can cream it with the butter and then add it to the flour.

This works particularly well when you have a stand mixer. You start by creaming your butter and sugar together. Then gradually add the flour until just mixed. This way you don’t have to overwork your dough to mix in the sugar.

A Secret Way Of Using The Eggs

Not all shortbread uses eggs, which is great for vegans. But, eggs are magical in baking. If you do choose to add eggs, the yolk will give your dough a richer consistency while the egg whites make the shortbread light and airy.

People typically add eggs when making a vanilla-flavoured shortbread or when making shortbread for strawberry shortcakes. There is a secret way of adding eggs to make your shortbreads creamy, crumbly, and light. That is by only using the egg yolks here.

You start by hard-boiling your egg. After it cools down, remove the egg whites and crumble the egg yolk. Mix this with the rest of the ingredients of your shortbread dough.

This gives your shortbread a creamy, irresistible texture. Even if it sounds strange, try it, and you won’t regret it.

Dry Out Your Dough

The reason which makes Scottish shortbread so delicious is their generations of experience. They have perfected the recipe and made it wholesome. They had a pre-baking drying out session when they would leave the dough in the warm oven for hours before baking it.

This drying helps improve the texture of the shortbread and makes each bite pleasantly powdery, which is why it feels like the cookie is melting in your mouth.

Since we don’t use traditional ovens, you can try drying the dough in the fridge. After you are done shaping the shortbread, cover the tray with cling wrap and leave them in the fridge overnight. It will make the butter retain shape and will naturally harden the dough.

This is also known as ageing the dough. We often age anything from sourdough to cookie dough, to get better flavor and texture.

Buttery Shortbread Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 cup of flour.
• 120 grams of butter.
• 50 grams of powdered sugar.

Process

• Take a mixing bowl and add your flour.
• Cut your butter into cubes and add it to the bowl. Start adding the butter into the flour.
• Add the sugar and continue mixing until it becomes a solid dough.
• If you are using a stand mixer, mix in the butter and sugar first and continue mixing until it is creamed. Then you add your flour gradually until the dough forms.
• On a lightly floured surface, roll out your dough until it is half a cm thick. Cut the dough into small, rectangular pieces.
• Use a fork to prick the dough, as you see on traditional shortbreads.
• Sprinkle some caster sugar on the pieces(optional).
• Put them on a baking tray.
• Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Put the tray in and start baking. After 5 minutes rotate the tray and bake for 5 more minutes or until done.
• Put them on a rack until they cool down.
• Enjoy it straight up or eat it with jam, marmalade, or conserve.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know how to make rich and crumbly shortbread, try it out. Once you do, you will never want to buy them from stores again.