This isn’t my first attempt at the shortbread. But I finally I managed to get the dough right, cooked it at the right temperature, followed the technique to the T and every bite of the shortbread is a perfect melting moment.

The classic shortbread needs only 4 ingredients, then what could possibly go wrong?  Take care of the following and you should get a decent shortbread.

1.  Butter should be at the room temperature and soft enough to mix well.
2. When you cream together butter and sugar, don’t over beat it. Beat only till the two are mixed well.
3. When you add flour to sugar-butter mix, mix with the beater for a minute then knead the dough with hand.
4. Don’t roll the dough before baking it. Flatten it / make shapes of your choice with your hands.

In my pursuit of making shortbread, I read a few blogs, watched some videos, scanned through cookery books – I am amazed to know that there are so many different methods of making that perfect shortbread. Some recipes replace 1/4^th plain flour by rice flour, some add corn starch and some use icing sugar instead of granulated sugar. While I stuck to my basic four ingredients, here are some interesting links on ‘shortbread’;

http://bakingforbritain.blogspot.in/2008/02/scottish-shortbread.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/sep/30/how-to-make-perfect-shortbread

Note down the recipe.

Ingredients;

½ cup sieved granulated sugar

1 cup lightly salted butter at room temperature (if you use unsalted butter, add a tsp of salt to the flour)

1 ½ sieved plain flour

A dash of vanilla (essence or use seeds from the vanilla pod)

 Procedure;

1. Cream together butter and sugar with a spoon or blender.
2. Add vanilla essence, all the flour and mix only till the time all the ingredients come together.
3. Keep the blender aside and mix the dough by hand.
4. Divide the dough in equal portions. Shape the dough as shortbread fingers – the length of a finger and thickness of about 1cm.
5. Line up the entire lot of shortbread fingers on a baking tray.
6. With a fork make light puncture marks at three places on each shortbread finger. This will help release bubbles
7. Chill the fingers for 20 mins before baking.
8. While the fingers are in the fridge, preheat the oven at 160 C
9. Remove the fingers from the freezer and put them straight into the oven. Bake for about 35-40 mins till they turn golden brown.
10. Take the fingers out of the oven. Sprinkle granulated sugar on them while they are hot.

Let the shortbreads cool. Store in air tight container.