BLOGMAS, Shortbread Recipe!

Hello my loves,

it’s baking time, yay!

One of my favourite things to bake has to be shortbread – it may be a simple recipe but from what I can gather it’s incredibly tasty, as it honestly doesn’t last long in my house before its all eaten up. So that’s what I’m going to bake today.

I personally think that this is the perfect recipe to do with your children. It’s fun and you can get as creative as you like!

Before I start I just wanted to mention that I’ve taken a few trips into Home Sense over the last couple of weeks and their Christmas selection, party items and baking items are absolutely amazing and going for an incredible prize. The store itself filled with bargains that you’d certainly not get anywhere else. I picked up quite a lot of baking cutters from home sense which I think everyone would love so if you’d like to check out the home sense website (I’d highly recommend you do) then their link is; http://www.homesense.com/

Anyway, if you’d like to know how to make these shortbread biscuits then just keep reading!

Shortbread ingredients;

– 226g/8oz of butter.

– 113g/4oz of caster sugar plus extra to finish.

– 339g/12oz of plain flour.

– One teaspoon of vanilla essence

Instructions;

– firstly gather all your ingredients/equipment you’ll need and preheat the oven to 180C/375F/Gas 5.

– Secondly, line your baking tray with baking paper or lightly butter the tray ready for your shortbread to go on.

– Thirdly, add the 8oz of butter and 4oz of caster sugar into a mixing bowl and cream together until it becomes smooth, fluffy and light.

– Once you’ve fully creamed the butter and sugar together, add a teaspoon of vanilla essence and stir till mixed in. then

– Then slowly stir in the 12oz of plain flour and mix together until its combined.

– Now your ingredients are mixed together, turn the mixture on a floured work surface and knead into a soft dough.

– Next roll the dough out to a thickness of 1cm. once that’s done you can cut your shortbread into any shaped you like. As I mentioned above I’ll be using my Christmas cutters!

*Always make sure you re-roll any left over dough to cut out the shortbread shapes so you don’t waste any dough*.

– Finally, place your cut out shortbread onto the baking tray and place in the oven. Cook the shortbread for about 12-15 minutes or until a nice golden brown colour. Once you’ve finished cooking, leave to cool on the tray for about 15 minutes before placing the shortbread onto wire racks.

That’s the shortbread cooked and cooled right down, now let’s go onto the fun part… decorating!

Decorating Ingredients;

– Royal icing

– 80 mls of water

– Icing/gel pens

– Different coloured food colourings of your choice

– Sprinkles of any kind. (I used snowflakes and mini white chocolate stars)

Instructions to make icing;
– Sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Add a few drops of flavouring, if you like. (I don’t usually add flavour as it tastes yummy alone but completely up too you)

– Using a teaspoon spoon, gradually stir in the water until the mixture is the consistency of thick cream.

WARNING… Too much water added to the icing will make it become too runny to set and not enough water added to the mixture will cause the icing to become hard and tricky to use.

– Once a thick cream consistency, add the food colouring colour of your choice and stir till the icing has completely changed colour. As its for Christmas id recommend red, greens and white.

– Now your icing is completely ready to use, add into a piping tool and get piping your decorations. I usually add mine into a squeezy bottle which you can pipe onto your shortbread however you like. The squeezy bottle works best for me with the consistency of the icing rather than using a piping bag!

– Finally, it’s time to add all the cute sprinkles, ball balls and anything you like to make them incredibly festive. I also like to pipe faces, clothing etc with the decorative icing/gel pens onto my shortbread once the icing has completely set. Doing it when the icing is completely set means the icing pens won’t sink straight into the wetness of the icing and fade outwards.

And that’s your shortbread cooked, cooled, decorated and ready to eat.

This was my final outcome and I’m actually quite proud! These turned out perfect for this festive season;

I really hope this gives you some Christmas treat ideas, so simple & easy to bake also very quick for last minute baking too, plus who doesn’t love shortbread?!