Day 9: Traditional Scottish treat
Real deal requires only three ingredients
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/12/2023 (1008 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Today, our annual baked-goods spectacular brings a simple but delicious favourite from reader Jeanie Dubberley.
This was my mother’s recipe. I don’t know where it came from originally — possibly one of the weekly English women’s magazines that she used to buy. She valued the simplicity of the traditional recipe, because her own mother (who had died when Mum was a toddler) has been born in Glasgow before emigrating to Canada with her large family when she was nine years old (1903).
Mum insisted, and I agree, that real shortbread has only these three ingredients; add anything else — vanilla, lemon zest, chocolate chips, or anything else — and the result is a very nice cookie, but not shortbread!
My earliest memories of this shortbread are of my mother’s beautiful hands, creaming the butter and sugar, working in the flour, kneading, rolling out, and cutting the dough, then tenderly placing the cookies on the cookie sheet. Eventually, she let me help, and I was thrilled to be entrusted with the awesome responsibility.
Eva Wasney / Winnipeg Free Press Traditional Scottish Shortbread
Traditional Scottish Shortbread
500 ml (2 cups) butter, at room temperature
250 ml (1 cup) golden (light brown) sugar
750 ml (3 cups) flour
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Cream together butter and sugar — my mother always insisted this was best done with one’s hands. The warmth of hands helped the butter and sugar cream together more completely.
Add the flour, still with your hands, until it is thoroughly incorporated and the dough can be gathered into a compact ball.
Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface about a dozen times, until it starts cracking. Roll the dough out to about 1/4-inch thickness and cut with desired cookie cutters, or form into a neat rectangle and cut into strips, then into individual bars.
Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until beginning to turn very pale golden-brown around the edges.
Cool on baking sheet set atop wire racks, about 15 minutes. Remove carefully from pan and continue cooling on racks. Store in tightly covered cookie tin.
— Submitted by Jeanie Dubberley
Looking for more Christmas treats? The Free Press has stored dozens of recipes from past years at wfp.to/cookies.
Eva Wasney covers environmental issues in Manitoba for The Narwhal in partnership with the Winnipeg Free Press. Read more about Eva.
Every piece of reporting Eva produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Homemade Holidays
Homemade Holidays is an annual roundup of 12 holiday baking recipes submitted by Free Press readers. Visit Homemade to send in your favourite festive cookie, cake or bar recipe for consideration.
Eva Wasney covers environmental issues in Manitoba for The Narwhal in partnership with the Winnipeg Free Press. Read more about Eva.
Every piece of reporting Eva produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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