Scottish Shortbread

A couple of high school friends who are now living in London visited us two weeks ago, and they brought me a tin of Marks & Spencer Scottish Shortbread. Shortbread is one of my favorite things in the world, so even though I haven't tried Marks and Spencer's, I was definitely delighted. The tin itself is very nice. It's depicting an old red English telephone box with a variety of characters each waiting their turn to use the phone. Such a collector's item! When I tried what's inside, I was even more delighted. I just loved how delicious these all-butter Scottish shortbread by M&S were! They have the usual melt-in-your-mouth goodness but have a different texture compared to the ones that I usually make and the shortbread brands that I usually buy here like Walker, Archer Farms and Voortman. I checked the ingredients and found out that aside from wheat flour, it also has rice and corn flour. So what did I do? Of course I tried making them! I added rice flour and corn meal (since I don't have corn flour) to my favorite recipe...and my goodness, those two ingredients added the most heavenly texture to the shortbread which I've always thought was the best! Now, I know there's a better shortbread recipe...thanks to my good friends, Ces & Elaine! I'll surely be thinking of them and their visit to Texas everytime I bake Scottish Shortbread (^.^)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/8 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup white rice flour
• 3 Tbsp corn meal
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the rice flour, corn meal, all purpose flour, salt and vanilla extract and mix until well incorporated. 

2. Shape dough into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Knead dough to soften a bit then roll out until ¼ inch thick. Cut into desired shapes using a cookie cutter. (>I shaped 1/3 of the dough into flowers and 2/3 into pumpkins, bats, ghosts and cats which are perfect for Halloween.) Arrange on prepared cookie sheets about ½ inch apart.

4. Place the unbaked cookies on the baking sheet in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. This will firm up the dough so the cookies will maintain their shape when baked. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until bottom of cookies are starting to brown. Remove from oven and allow to completely cool down. Serve as is or decorate as desired.

 

Note: It's Halloween so I decided to shape and decorate these Shortbread cookies using White Chocolate Cream Cheese Glaze...but I tell you, they are definitely good as is!

A SAFE AND HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO YOU ALL!