Short Bread Recipe

11:30 AM | Labels: cakes, recipes, short bread recipe

Recipe for traditional short bread.

Short bread is more of a biscuit, short cake is more cakey, so chances are if you've bought either of these recipes from a shop it will have been traditional short bread.

Short bread is a lovely buttery melt in the mouth biscuit.

This recipe is easy, fast and tastes fantastic.

Chef baked short bread fingers and petticoat tails.

If you want the buttery taste of traditional short bread make sure you use real butter and not margarine. If you only have margarine in your fridge but still want to bake this recipe then go ahead because it will still taste really nice - it just won't have the traditional butter taste.

Ingredients
9 oz Plain White Flour
3 oz Caster Sugar
6oz Butter
Fine Caster Sugar (for dusting)

Mix together your flour and sugar in a bowl. Add your butter and rub together with your fingers. You will start to get a bread crumb texture, now start to knead it together to form a ball.

Half your ball into two balls. Take one of the balls to make your petticoat tails.

For your petticoat tails roll your ball out into a circle approx 1cm/1/2 inch thick. Place a plate over the top and cut around to edges.

Carefully place onto a greased and floured tray/dish. Now mark your your circle into 8 with a knife. I cut around the edges with a crinkle cutter. Gently make some marks into your circle with a fork,bake in an oven at 160C for 20-30 minutes or until pale and golden.

For your short bread fingers take your second ball of short bread mixture. Roll into a square/rectangle as much as you can. Take a knife cut the edges off to form a perfect edge. Now cut finger shapes out approx an inch in width and a few inches long.

Again place on a floured and greased baking tray and mark with a fork. Place in an oven at 160C but this time only for 20-25 minutes or until pale and golden. They cook quicker than the petticoat tails.

When you take your petticoat tails out of the oven cut through the lines you marked in earlier . Dust with fine caster sugar and leave to cool on a wire rack. When you take out your short bread fingers dust with fine caster sugar and cool on a wire rack also. Don't eat until they have cooled down.