Holiday baking at my house always features some of our our family's favourite cookies but my mother's Scottish shortbread is a must!
By CINDA CHAVICH
Shortbread is THE cookie in my family, the only cookie that’s imperative to serve alongside the butter tarts and fruitcake at holiday gatherings.
It’s traditional Scottish shortbread — the Glaswegian kind my mother made, and her mother, too. My mother is now the official shortbread baker, and still always sends us a big batch of her snappy shortbread to devour over the Christmas season.
Shortbread is all about the butter — the shortening (a.k.a. fat) that makes this simple cookie “short” or especially crisp and crumbly.
My mother’s shortbread is a perfectly portable, utilitarian treat — pale squares, unadorned save a punctured pattern made with the tines of a fork. Just three ingredients combine to create its simple, buttery goodness — sugar, butter, and flour — in the perfect, tried-and-true ratio.
It’s the technique that makes my mom’s shortbread memorable. Soft butter, creamed well, and combined with sugar and flour, then quickly gathered into a ball (with her conveniently cold hands) and formed into a thick slab using the wide blade of a knife. It’s then cut and transferred to the cookie sheet, the fat fingers huddled tightly together to bake until firm and barley tinged with gold.
Though some recipes call for rolling shortbread dough and cutting the cookies into various shapes that would be unheard of in my house – it’s over-handling that creates tough shortbread, says my wise mum.
For cookies that are both firm and crumbly, the less manipulation the better.
The climate may be a factor in perfect shortbread, too. My mother decrees that shortbread must have good bite. There’s nothing worse than soft shortbread – god forbid you store your shortbread cookies together with something moist like fruitcake or tarts, and the cookies lose their snap.
Our Christmas cookie care package, arriving as it does from the cold dry prairies, means excess moisture is never an issue. The name says it all — a “short” crisp cookie, that always tastes beautifully buttery.
ANCIENT SHORTBREAD HISTORY
According to shortbread lore, the origins of shortbread reach back to 12th century Scotland, a “biscuit bread”, first rolled from leftover scraps of bread dough. Even after the leavening was replaced by the luxury of expensive butter, and the “short” crumbly cookie became a treat reserved for holidays and other special occasions, the “bread” bit of the name stuck – apparently to avoid the tax on sweet biscuits.
Mary Queen of Scots is credited with adding her own twist to shortbread cookies – spices, nuts and candied citrus turned up in shortbread after her reign, and the cookies were pressed into round molds and cut into triangular “petticoat tails”, the way she liked them.
Though the first recipe for shortbread was published in a Scottish cookbook in 1736, and called for various ingredients including yeast and eggs, by the mid-19th century the recipe was pared down to it’s current combination of butter, sugar and flour (sometimes oat flour).
Queen Victoria loved Scotland – and Scottish shortbread — and Balmoral Shortbread was reportedly served to her daily. In Lancashire, shortbread is still flavoured with caraway and coriander seed, while some UK versions have ginger, almonds and orange peel.
Beyond Scotland, shortbread-style butter cookies morphed around the globe, to include treats like nutty little Mexican Wedding Cakes with ground pecans, Greek Kourambiedes, softened with powdered sugar, and Viennese crescent cookies that combine both ground nuts and icing sugar in for a tender bite. Germans make shortbread or heidesand with nutty browned butter and additions like candied ginger, orange and rosemary.
The Scandinavian piped or pressed spritz cookies get their tender texture from egg yolks and a splash of milk. For French sablés, a rolled butter cookie from Normandy, the sandy texture is created by the technique of cutting the cold butter into the flour and binding the cookie dough with egg yolks.
But the Scottish shortbread cookie is the original, the inspiration for all of these buttery sweets. It’s a holiday cookie, originally served in Scotland for Christmas and Hogmanay, the New Year’s Eve celebration. The cookie’s shape is always simple – either thick fingers or large discs, the stiff dough pressed into pans or decorative molds to bake, then cut into wedges.
MODERN SHORTBREAD
Today shortbread comes in all shapes, sizes and flavours.
On the Chatelaine magazine website, there are 70 recipes for shortbread — lavender shortbread, shortbread icebox cookies with milk chocolate chunks, oatmeal shortbread bars, eggnog shortbread cookies, and pizza slice-shaped Italian shortbread. There are glacé cherry shortbread balls, Earl Grey tea shortbread recipes, even Skor bar shortbread and savoury jalapeno cheddar or Stilton rosemary shortbread.
You’ll find commercial shortbread imported from Scottish companies like Walkers and a variety of flavours from creative local bakeries (think Coconut, Hazelnut, Ginger Cardamom, Rosemary Brown Sugar, Matcha Green Tea) .
Ruth & Dean’s Susannah Ruth Bryan is like me, a fan of her mom’s shortbread recipe.
“Shortbread is really personal,” says Bryan. “It should snap on the exterior, and the interior should be buttery.”
For the shop, Bryan’s shortbread is flavoured with orange blossom and zest, pressed into a pastry pan and cut into wedges. But it’s all about the best butter.
“I spend $9K on butter every year,” she laughs.
At Ottavio, baker Cam McCaw makes three kinds of shortbread – rounds studded with cranberries and pistachios, whipped lavender-scented shortbread, and piped rosettes of shortbread filled with chopped figs. He only works with premium 84% New Zealand butter, essential for the laminated pastry for croissants and for butter cookies.
“The biggest flavour component is the butter – but it’s also about the fat and water content,” says McCaw. “There’s an astonishing difference.”
“I buy 25 kg blocks, and use one and a half a week. I’ve used all kinds of butter. After New Zealand, I like the butter from Belgium, Ireland and Arizona – Canadian butter falls dead last.”
ALL ABOUT BETTER BUTTER
The best bakers select unsalted butter. It’s considered fresher and allows salting the baking to taste.
The vast majority of butter you can buy today in Canada has a fat content of 80 per cent. But there’s a movement in the fine food world toward hand-churned, small batch, artisan butter – rich, silky butters that attain a higher fat level of 84 per cent butter fat (the standard for butter in Europe).
You’ll pay twice the price (and more) for these higher-fat butters, but when you taste the premium butter from company’s like PEI’s Cows creamery, Ontario’s Churn84 or BC’s Golden Ears butter (grass-fed, 88% butter fat), you may never go back to regular butter.
There’s a distinctive taste and texture in these higher fat butters. Better to on a fresh baguette or make shortbread – with 10-20 per cent less water than standard commercial butter and a higher melting point, it simply makes the best butter cookies.
(If you’re using regular butter, a trick is to soften a pound, wrap it in cheesecloth, and squeeze the excess water out.)
The ratio of fat to flour is important, too. Not enough flour, and the cookies will be greasy and chewy, instead of crumbly and crisp.
Scottish shortbread recipes are defined by the classic 3:2:1 ratio (by weight) of three parts flour, two parts butter, one part sugar.
Though it would be heresy in my family, some shortbread bakers, seeking a softer result, swap out ¼-1/2 cup of the all-purpose flour for rice flour or cornstarch.
You can flavour any basic shortbread with spices (think cinnamon, nutmeg or cardamom), citrus zest, vanilla, or fresh minced rosemary, lavender or lemon thyme.
When making thicker shortbread fingers the “docking” with a fork helps to allow steam to escape while baking for a crisp cookie.
Bryan bakes her shortbread at 350˚F, but if you like a drier cookie, start it in a hot 425˚F oven, turn the heat down to 300˚F immediately, and bake it longer, “until barely brown on the cut edges.”
SHORTBREAD AND CHAMPAGNE
You may think of shortbread as that cookie to have with a cuppa tea, and that’s a classic combination, but shortbread is also nice with champagne.
It’s the dry palate cleansing spritz of a good bubbly that cuts the richness of the buttery cookie. Any of the crisp Vancouver Island Charme de L’ile bubblies would make a good foil for a shortbread cookie.
Or if you just want to double down on the decadence, serve your shortbread with creamy eggnog, laced with whisky or rum (I like the deVine Honey Shine, too).
In fact, at The Courtney Room, the traditional Breton shortbread is made with cultured Churn84 butter and Maldon salt, crisp and salty and served alongside their crème brulee.
For Scottish New Year celebrations shortbread is served with whisky, though I think the Honey Shine would be a nice after dinner dram, too.
THE GREATEST GIFT
Maida Heatter is the queen of cookies — and by the time the James Beard hall of famer died at age 102, she had baked, and given away, a lot of cookies.
That’s what she said made her happy.
It makes others happy, too, she writes in her seminal cookie book, Maida Heatter’s Brand New Book of Great Cookies (published in 2019 when she was 81!)
“I’ve had a few problems in my life, but what to do with cookies has never been one of them,” Heatter writes. “I give them away and it is magic. It makes people happy and that, in turn, makes me happy.”
I’m always happy to receive my mother’s gift of her perfect shortbread. Give it a whirl – and give it away. You’ll have the happiest holiday!
RECIPES:
MOM’S CLASSIC SCOTTISH SHORTBREAD
This is my mother’s (and grandmother’s) recipe for shortbread – small squares or short fingers that should snap, then crumble and melt in your mouth. The trick is to handle the mixture as minimally as possible. Warm hands, or rolling, can take your cookies from tender to tough, she says. You could use an electric mixer by my mom is old school – everything is made by hand. This is exactly how she does it.
1 pound butter (soft, at room temperature)
1 cup granulated sugar
4½ to 5 cups of all-purpose flour
Get out a large bowl and a wooden spoon.
Place the soft butter in the bowl, and “cream it really well”, using the wooden spoon. Gradually work in the sugar. Then gradually add the flour, beating by hand until “it’s coming away from the sides of the bowl.”
My mother says you must “get at least 4½ cups of flour into the dough,” and as much flour a you can. It should be crumbly.
Dump the dough onto your work surface (onto a piece of parchment paper if you like) and “work it into a thick square” using a big knife. “You can’t touch it with your hands,” she says.
When you have a flat, even square, about 3/4–inch thick, cut into small squares or stubby rectangles, about 1 inch square or slightly larger. Using a knife, lift the cookies onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet, and arrange close together, about ½ inch apart (this helps to prevent spreading – you may have to cut the cookies apart at the base when they’re done). Poke each cookie with a fork.
Bake at 325˚F for 30 to 35 minutes, until the cookies are firm and barley golden on the bottom. They should not be brown – pale with just a tinge of gold on the top edges.
Remove fro the oven, cool partially then slide onto a rack to cool for at least 3 hours (shortbread improves in texture as it cools). Store in a cookie tin. Makes about 60 pieces.
ORANGE CHOCOLATE SHORTBREAD
This dark, chocolate cookie may be pressed into a round before baking, then cut into wedges (like the classic Petticoat Tails of old), or baked in a 9 X 13-inch pan.
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons finely grated orange rind
2 cups all purpose flour
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled slightly
Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Mix in the orange rind. Slowly add the flour, beating to combine. Then drizzle in the warm chocolate and mix well.
Line your pan with parchment and press the dough into the pan. If using a round pan, choose a 10-inch springform, line with parchment and smooth the dough into the pan. You can then release the sides and slide the round onto a baking sheet, scoring it into thin wedges and decorating with a fork or wooden skewer before baking.
Bake at 300˚F for 40-45 minutes, until firm, then transfer to a rack to cool. If using a rectangular baking pan, cut the cookies into bars while still warm. Makes 16.
BUTTERY PECAN CRESCENTS
Not technically shortbread, but a simple buttery cookie that my grandmother made every year for Christmas — a treat with Eastern European roots.
You can make them start to finish in a food processor, or grind the pecans in a blender and combine by hand.
Don't miss the final step of dusting the warm cookies in icing sugar for a tasty and snowy touch!
1 1/4 cup whole pecans (about 1 cup ground)
1 cup icing sugar (powdered sugar), divided, plus extra for dusting
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
In a food processor, combine the nuts with half of the icing sugar and pulse until the nuts are finely ground. Cut the butter into large cubes and add to the processor along with the remaining sugar and whirl until the butter is smooth. Add the vanilla and flour and pulse just until the dough comes together.
Chill for 1 hour then form into crescents using about 1 1/2 teaspoons of batter for each cookie. Roll by hand into a sausage shape, with slightly pointed ends, then form a moon shaped crescent and set on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.
Bake at 350ºF for 10-15 minutes, until the cookies are just light golden.
Slide the cookies, parchment paper and all, onto racks to cool for 5 minutes, then dust heavily with icing sugar (use a flour sifter or simply put the icing sugar into a small sieve and tap to dust the cookies) or roll them in a bowl of icing sugar to coat.
Keep them in a cookie tin — separate the layers with parchment.
Makes 4-4 1/2 dozen.
NUTTY BROWN SUGAR SHORTBREAD
And a variation on the above — a delicate rolled cookie with ground pecans and dark demerara sugar in the mix.
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup packed demerara sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans
2 cups all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
With an electric mixture, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the vanilla.
In a food processor, pulse the pecans until chopped fine. Add the flour and salt and whirl until the mixture is fairly fine and powdery.
Gradually add the flour mixture into the butter mixture and combine to form a smooth dough.
Dump the dough out onto a piece of plastic wrap and roll into a 2-inch round or square log. Refrigerate at least 3 hours or overnight.
When ready to bake, cut into 1/4–inch slices and arrange on parchment-lined cookie sheets, an inch or so apart. Bake at 300˚F for 20-30 minutes, until the cookies are lightly brown and firm. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.
SAVOURY CHEESE SHORTBREAD
Makes 40 pieces.
These little savoury shortbread cookies are filled with a spicy fig jam. You can also simply form the dough into a log, wrap in parchment and chill, then slice and bake for a cheesy “shortbread” cookie, and serve the spicy fig jam alongside.
1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
2 large egg yolks
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups (12 ounces) shredded Jarlsberg cheese
1 cup grated fresh parmesan cheese
1 1/2 cups finely chopped, toasted pecans or unblanched almonds
Fig Jam:
3/4 cup finely chopped figs, stemmed
1/2 cup hot pepper jelly (red or green)
Preheat oven to 350°. Place butter in large bowl. Beat with electric mixer on medium speed until creamy. Beat in egg yolks. On low speed, gradually beat in flour. Stir in Jarlsberg, parmesan and nuts.
Divide dough into 4 equal portions. Wrap 3 in wax paper, parchment or plastic wrap and chill.
On work surface, form remaining portion of dough into 10 (1 1/2-inch) balls. Place balls, 1 1/2-inches apart, on ungreased baking sheet. With thumb or back of wooden spoon, make 1/2-inch indentation in center of each cookie. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until light golden brown. If needed, press back of teaspoon into cookies to re-form indentations. Remove cookies to wire rack to cool.
Repeat shaping and baking with remaining dough. To serve, in small bowl, stir together figs and jelly. Fill each cookie with about 1 teaspoon fig-pepper jelly
Make ahead tips: Dough can be prepared 1 to 2 days ahead. Form dough into 1 1/2-inch cylinder, wrap airtight and chill or freeze for longer storage.
Baked cookies can be stored unfilled, in airtight container for 2 days or frozen. To re-crisp, place on baking sheet in 350° oven for 2 to 4 minutes. Cool. Fill with fig-pepper jelly as directed.
©CindaChavich2024