Walkers Shortbread Mini Rounds, Traditional Pure Butter Scottish Recipe, 11g (Pack of 200)

Product Information

The biscuit is crunchy indeed, but in my opinion, it is a tad too hard, and especially so if it is not eaten within few days. In ancient Scottish folklore, sun-shaped cakes, such as shortbread, had magic powers over the Sun during the Scottish New Year's Eve. Use your hands to combine the ingredients until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs, then squeeze until it comes together as a dough. Although it was prepared during much of the 12th century, and probably benefited from cultural exchange with French pastry chefs during the Auld Alliance between France and Scotland, [3] the refinement of shortbread is popularly credited to Mary, Queen of Scots in the 16th century.

Then my Pecan Shortbread dipped in Maple Glaze hits the spot in Autumn, followed by my Cranberry Orange Shortbread and Christmas Tree Shortbread to enjoy during the festive season. Since we didn't like them my partner took these biscuits to work and her colleagues agreed that these were the best ginger biscuits they tried and that they loved them, so I am just relaying the information. That said, shortbread is also incredible if you want to add things like homemade candied ginger, homemade candied citrus peels, dried cranberries, rosemary, and anything else your imagination inspires you to try.The "short-cake" mentioned in Shakespeare's play The Merry Wives of Windsor, first published in 1602, was a reference to the cookie-style of shortbread. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the butter and sugar and cream for about 2 to 3 minutes on medium speed until pale and light. In the oven, the dough will spread as the butter in the mixture melts, but baking it from chilled helps reduce this effect. In her day the shortbread was commonly flavored with caraway seeds, which were all the rage in British baking for several centuries. When you try to stamp out the cookies it will stick to the stamps and lose shape when you try to transfer the cutouts to a baking tray.

Only mix as much as is needed to incorporate the flour into the butter mixture – this is best done by hand as it’s easy to over process the dough when using an electric mixer. An 8×8 gives thicker cookies (probably why they were still soft but golden on top) and would absolutely never give you 16-18 servings. Due to its high fat content, the formation of gluten is inhibited resulting in shortbread having an extremely 'short' tender texture. Shortbread is generally associated with and originated in Scotland, but due to its popularity it is also made in the rest of the United Kingdom, and similar biscuits are also made in Denmark, Ireland and Sweden. Since a lot of people I know agreed that these were by far the best ginger cookies they tried I am going to give it five stars, and even though I don't like the taste profile, I can still taste the quality of ingredients and that is what is important.

Vanilla bean paste or the scraped beans from ½ a vanilla bean is a good substitute for vanilla extract. I found using a little less sugar instead of a half cup makes them more bread like and so delicious as they really are not supposed to be a sweet cookie. I haven't tested the quantity of dough from this recipe in a tart pan so you'll have to use your judgment as to whether it should go all in one large pan or be split into two smaller ones. Once the dough is rolled out use a floured, round cookie cutter (or whichever shape you have), press the cutter firmly down into the shortbread dough (Image 6).