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Desserts

Shortbread

Shortbread is the crumbly Scottish butter biscuit, made with just butter, sugar, flour and salt and shaped here into classic fingers.
Recipe Shortbread
  • Difficulty Easy
  • Preparation 30 minutes
  • Cooking 20 minutes
  • Servings for 25 cookies

Shortbread is a crumbly Scottish biscuit that comes in three classic shapes. In this recipe we make Shortbread Fingers, but if you prefer one of the other shapes you can of course use the same dough.

As you can see from the ingredients, the classic Shortbread recipe is very simple: one part Sugar, two parts Butter and three parts Flour. That also makes these cookies perfect if you have friends who can’t eat eggs, or if you’d like to try Eggless Cookies that are a little different from the usual.

Shortbread Biscuits are Scotland’s best-loved butter biscuits, and they are now so common throughout the United Kingdom that many people simply think of them as British Butter Biscuits.

If you’d like to try cookies from other countries, have a go at Butter Cookies, Classic American Cookies and Pão de Mel (Brazilian Honey and Chocolate Cookies). Now let’s get to the Shortbread recipe.

Ingredients for 25 cookies

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Method

  1. To make the Shortbread, first preheat the oven to 180 °C (350 °F). Put the butter, cold from the fridge and cut into cubes, and the sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and run the machine to combine them well. Sift the flour straight into the bowl, add the salt too, then mix everything with the paddle attachment.
  2. When you have a smooth, fairly soft dough, shape it into a block and wrap it in parchment paper, then put it in the fridge to rest for about half an hour.
  3. When the resting time is up, take the dough and roll it out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured work surface to a sheet about 5 millimeters (1/4 inch) thick. Using a smooth pastry wheel, cut out rectangles measuring 3 x 8 centimeters (about 1 x 3 inches).
  4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the cookies on it, spaced a little apart, then use the tines of a fork to prick neat rows of holes in the tops.
  5. Bake at 180 °C (350 °F) for about 20 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden. Take them out of the oven, let them cool completely, then serve the Shortbread. Finally, remember to download our App with exclusive content and fewer ads!

Variations and Alternatives

These are actually Shortbread Fingers, but shortbread can be made in other shapes too. With the same dough you can also make Shortbread Rounds, which are round, and Petticoat Tails, which are shaped like wedges of a cake.

Tips

If you don’t have a smooth pastry wheel, you can of course use a knife, or, for more precise cuts, an ordinary pizza cutter.

Storage

You can store Shortbread for a few days in a cookie tin.

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