Scottish shortbread

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This article was published 10/12/2010 (5765 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Day 9 of the Free Press’s 21 Days of Holiday Cookies features Scottish shortbread. We will be publishing one cookie recipe every day — Monday to Saturday — till Christmas.

When it comes to holiday food traditions, sometimes the making is just as important as the eating. Three Winnipeg friends, Joann MacMorran, Mary Gigliotti and Arlene Draffin Jones, have been getting together every December for four decades to bake shortbread cookies.

Scottish Shortbread

454 g (2 cups) butter, at room temperature

125 ml (1/2 cup) icing sugar

125 ml (1/2 cup) berry sugar, sometimes called fruit sugar

750 ml (3 cups) all-purpose flour

375 ml (1 1/2 cups) rice flour

Preheat oven to 140C (275F). Mix butter and both sugars until well combined. Add both flours, stir in, and then knead dough on board until cracks appear. Press out to about 1.2 cm (1/2 in) thick. Cut into shapes, place on ungreased cookie sheets, and bake 20-25 minutes. If necessary, turn up oven to 150C (300F) and watch very carefully until edges are very slightly golden brown.

Taster’s Notes: A classic traditional shortbread, rich but not too sweet, with a slightly sandy texture from the addition of rice flour. Cooking times can vary a great deal, depending on size and shape of cookie. Smaller cookies might take less than 20 minutes.

Alison Gillmor
Writer

Studying at the University of Winnipeg and later Toronto’s York University, Alison Gillmor planned to become an art historian. She ended up catching the journalism bug when she started as visual arts reviewer at the Winnipeg Free Press in 1992.

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