Vintage Shortbread Recipes That are Perfect for the Holidays (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to good shortbread? ›

Walker's Shortbread is honoured to carry a Royal Warrant, granted by Her Majesty the Queen, for the supply of Shortbread and Oatcakes. Walker's Shortbread is a gift fit for a king, and a treat befitting any special occasion.

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.

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.

Takeaway: look for recipes that use granulated sugar for a more crisp-style shortbread and powdered sugar for a more tender shortbread!

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.

Millionaire shortbread is also known as caramel slice, but no matter! Regardless of the name, the important part is how amazingly delicious this dessert tastes!

Shortbread or shortie is a traditional Scottish biscuit usually made from one part white sugar, two parts butter, and three to four parts plain wheat flour. Shortbread does not contain any leavening, such as baking powder or baking soda.

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.

The word "bread" comes from "biscuit bread" which was made from leftover bread dough that was sweetened and dried out in the oven to make biscuits. Why do you poke holes in shortbread? The holes allow the moisture to escape during baking and more even heat distribution. This helps dry out and crisp up the cookies.

What are the disadvantages of shortbread? ›

It is super crumbly as a result of minimal kneading. As the dough isn't worked very much, gluten can't build up so the shortbread stays very fragile. The addition of semolina or rice flour helps increase the crumbliness whereas cornstarch makes the biscuits denser and therefore harder.

Should butter be cold or room temperature for making shortbread? Always start with cold butter straight from the refrigerator. This will keep the dough from warming up, making it greasy and difficult to roll out.

Nevis Bakery's all butter, melt-in-the-mouth shortbread biscuits topped with sweet, crunchy demerara sugar. Winning 3 Gold stars and best Scottish Speciality at the Great Taste Awards in 2009. Made in the shadow of Ben Nevis near Fort William.

Making shortbread is an age-old Christmas tradition in Scotland, and fortunately for you, we make it easy to give a delicious gift of all-butter Walker's Shortbread to your loved ones for Christmas.

The custom of eating shortbread at New Year has its origins in the ancient pagan Yule Cakes which symbolised the sun. In Scotland it is still traditionally offered to “first footers” at New Year.

Unsalted Butter: As the base of nearly all shortbread recipes, butter supplies these classic cookies with flavor and softness. Make sure you use room temperature butter that's still cool to the touch. If it's too warm, the butter and sugar cannot properly cream and the cookies will taste dense.

Instead, chill the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or so (overnight is OK, too). A short stay in the fridge will firm up the cookies and solidify the butter. This will help keep them from spreading too much. Also, it helps concentrate those flavors for your best ever shortbread.

Making shortbread cookies with cornstarch is necessary for a tender and delicate cookie. Next time you make chocolate chip cookies, I suggest you try adding 1 Tbsp of cornstarch to the batch to help keep them extra soft and tender.

Start with a teaspoon of fat and mix your dough well. If the dough is still falling apart, you can keep adding more in small increments. And at the end of the day, you can always add a little bit of water as well if your shortbread still hasn't formed a cohesive dough.