The perfect shortbread can be quite elusive. Read our essential guide and try our classic recipe – you could discover a new family favourite!
Table of Contents
Shortbread – Tips For Success
Good shortbread is pale, buttery, crunchy, and ‘short’. This means it crumbles at every bite, giving that characteristic shortbread texture. It shouldn’t be soft or chewy like cookies, and it shouldn’t be browned. How do you achieve this kind of perfection?
It can be difficult to consistently make good Shortbread, even using the same recipe. That’s because shortbread’s texture depends on your mood and the kitchen temperature. This very Sensitive Dough doesn’t like to be handled too much. But that’s not to say that you should be folding and incorporating air – rather, you should be trying to work the mixture as little as possible to keep it cool and ‘short’.
There are two main things that can go wrong with the shortbread dough (before it’s cooked): first, overworking the dough will put the flour’s gluten (proteins) into action. Gluten is what stretches out and makes chewy bread or cookies – and you definitely don’t want it working on your shortbread.
Secondly, getting the butter too warm (because of your hands or kitchen temperature) or breaking it up too much will prevent the shortbread from forming those crumbly layers. Aim for some smaller (breadcrumb sized) and some larger (think oat-sized) pieces of butter. These should melt in the oven, not the bowl, creating air pockets that give a light, crumbly finish.
When cooking, it’s vital not to overcook shortbread. As it contains no eggs, the dough requires very little cooking and you certainly don’t need to brown it. Cook until just tinged with gold at the edges and your shortbread will finish cooking on the rack.
Remember the two keys to success: keep the dough cool (open a kitchen window), and work in the butter gently and swiftly.
You Need:
250g unsalted butter (choose the best quality butter that you can find)
225g plain flour
2tbsp cornflour
125g icing sugar, sifted
Pinch of salt
Sift the Flours and Sugar together with the salt into a large bowl or food processor. Cut the butter into small pieces and drop them in, then, using a wooden spoon, plastic blade or pastry cutter, combine everything until it starts to come together.
Preheat the oven temperature to 170 degrees C. Turn the mixture onto a lightly-floured board and knead very gently until it comes together to form a dough. Roll it to about 1cm thick and cut out rounds or shapes. Transfer to a cool baking tray. Use a fork to prick each round once.
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Note: If you don’t want to roll and cut the biscuits, roll the dough into a 5cm diameter log and put into the fridge for half an hour, then use a warm knife to cut slices. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until the biscuits are just beginning to get a golden tinge at the edges. Cool on a wire rack thoroughly before dusting with icing sugar to serve.
The most common mistakes when making shortbread are over-working the dough, and incorporating too much flour. The less you work the dough, the more crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth your shortbread cookies will be.
Piercing the shortbread with a fork is not only for decoration, but it's meant for more even baking. Poking holes in the shortbread allows the heat to penetrate the cookie, hence more even baking. Notice I'm using powdered sugar here. You'll see lots of shortbread recipes using granulated sugar.
Why is my shortbread crumbly after baking? If your butter and flour ratio is off, your shortbread may have the wrong texture. Butter is key, it contains a large percentage of water, and that water develops the gluten structure which gives strength and crunch to the biscuit.
To make sure that your shortbread releases from the pan cleanly, be sure it is completely cooked in the middle before you remove the pan from the oven. Directions for shortbread baked on a cookie sheet often tell you to cook the shortbread only until the top of the cookies just barely begin to color.
The key with shortbread is not to overhandle it. Make the dough exactly as instructed, but don't mess around making shapes or over rolling the dough - you will end up with delicious but tough biscuits. Stretching and pulling the dough activates the gluten in the flour, making chewy cookies and not crisp ones.
Cornstarch provides the shortbread with structure, but its biggest job is keeping the cookies extra soft, tender, and light. I love adding a small amount to chocolate chip cookies too. Optional Coarse Sugar Topping: For an optional sparkly crunch on your shortbread wedges, add a sprinkle of coarse sugar before baking.
It comes from using a high proportion of fat (or shortening) to flour and is also where shortcrust pastry gets its name. Why do you put shortbread in the fridge before baking? Chilling the dough before baking will help the shortbread keep their shape while cooking.
Traditional Scottish shortbread is a simple recipe made with sugar, butter, flour, and salt. Other shortbread styles will include leavening agents like baking powder and baking soda, which makes them crisp instead of crumbly like traditional Scottish shortbread.
Shortbread should always have a tender, melting texture, but be slightly crisp when you bite into it. It should not generally be damp or wet underneath. A classic shortbread recipe will also only have flour, butter and sugar as the ingredients (in a 3:2:1 ratio) and not egg, which could lead to excess moisture.
One common culprit for chewy shortbread is too much moisture in the dough. Make sure your butter is cold and firm when you start, and try not to overmix the dough to avoid incorporating too much air and moisture. Lastly, don't forget about the thickness of your shortbread dough.
There are 3 shapes: fingers, petticoat tails, and rounds
Meet the 3 shortbread shapes: petticoat tails, rounds, and fingers (the most popular type). Although the clean, buttery flavour boosted shortbread to fame, recently bakers have added fruit, nuts, chocolate chip, and vanilla into the mix.
It's important to avoid over-mixing shortbread dough, which will develop gluten and make the finished product tough, not tender. To make sure that the flour mixes completely with little effort, sift the flour first to get out all of the lumps.
Firstly it's because the butter and sugar have been over creamed and too much air has been incorporated into the mixture. This extra air will expand during baking as it heats in the oven and will therefore make your biscuits spread.
Shortbread has a much higher ratio of butter to flour and this is precisely what gives it that distinct melt-in-your-mouth texture. These proportions make shortbread a lot more dense compared to cookies, which means you could easily end up with shortbread that's hard and crunchy rather than buttery and crumbly.
Problem eight: Once cooled, if I know my biscuits are underbaked can I put them back in the oven? Jo's solution: You can. Also, if you don't eat shortbread within a few days and they go soft, you can refresh them in the oven, too.
Chill them overnight; not the dough in a lump but go ahead and roll them out, and cut them into the shapes you want. leave them on the pan in the fridge. Probably, truth be told an hour would be enough. If you're interested in making cute shapes colder for longer is going to be best.
It's all in the quality of the ingredients. With such a short ingredient list, the quality makes a big difference. The perfect shortbread cookie should be crumbly, but not dry, buttery but not greasy and sweet but not sickly.
According to Food Crumbles, this ratio is what makes shortbread so irresistible as the sugar contributes to the cookies' sweetness and crispness, meanwhile higher amounts of butter add flavor and consistency, while flour binds these two malleable ingredients together.
Traditional Scottish shortbread is a simple recipe made with sugar, butter, flour, and salt. Other shortbread styles will include leavening agents like baking powder and baking soda, which makes them crisp instead of crumbly like traditional Scottish shortbread.
Shortbread is so named because of its crumbly texture (from an old meaning of the word "short", as opposed to "long", or stretchy). The cause of this texture is its high fat content, provided by the butter. The short or crumbly texture is a result of the fat inhibiting the formation of long protein (gluten) strands.
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