Candlebridge Bakery Vanilla Butter Shortbread
Over a year ago
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Ingredients
- (ingredient)
- 6oz Plain Flour
- 2oz Castor Sugar
- 2 Tablespoons Vanilla Sugar
- 1 Pinch of Salt
- (ingredient)
- 4oz Cold Butter
- (ingredient)
- 4 Large Tablespoons Dairygold Soft Butterspread
- 3 Caps Natural Vanilla Essence
Accompaniment
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Description
I was in the mood for something buttery but not too sweet, so I decided to update an old recipe of mine for shortbread and added vanilla. The result is only fabulous & addictive!
Method
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1
Preheat your oven to 150oC and butter grease a sponge cake tin
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2
In a large bowl, sieve the flour, sugars and salt together and mix it well together.
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3
Cut the cold butter into squares and add to the dry mix.
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4
Begin to rub the butter into the flour and sugar mix as you would if you were making scones or a pastry. The result you want is nice and crumbly.
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5
In the microwave, melt the Dairygold butter spread in a jug, for 35 seconds on high setting until melted. (place a sheet of clingfilm over the jug to prevent splashing inside the microwave oven!)
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6
Add the vanilla essence to the melted butter into the crumbled mix and mix to a soft dough until all the sides of the bowl are clean.
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7
Place the dough in the sponge cake tin and press into the sides until you cover the tin..
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8
Take a sharp knife and gently pressed it into pie slices and with a fork, prick the dough in several places!
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9
Place your shortbread in the oven on the middle shelf for 30 minutes
** 10. After 30 minutes, open the oven door and check to see if the shortbread is beginning to colour nice and golden. If so, take a folded sheet of greaseproof paper and place over the tin to avoid any burning and place a stainless steel spoon on top to keep the greaseproof paper in place and bake for a further 20 minutes -
10
After the final 20 minutes, remove the greaseproof paper. Be careful with the spoon as it's going to be hot, so handle it with care using a tea towel to safeguard yourself.
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11
Take a knife and gently cut through the shortbread and leave to cool for a further 30 minutes before serving.
*** Recipe Method Change ***
(A) If you decide you want little cookies, then you take a piece of dough, roll it into a ball and place on your baking paper and gently press down, 2" apart
(B) If you decide to pipe your cookies, the same applies, 2" apart - Shake some castor sugar over your raw cookies prior to baking.
(C) Reduce your cooking time to 30 minutes only & remove from the oven and allow to cool on a plate before shaking over some more castor sugar
**Original recipe by L Shannon, The Candlebridge Bakery - 1st May 2010 **
Chef's Tips
** Star Tip **
1. If you don't have Dairygold Butterspread, Lidl's own "Dairymanor" is very good too - just a soft butter spread that you can use a tablespoon with!
2. If you're feeling very creative, do what I did and put the mixture into a piping bag with a large nozzle and pipe a circle and then a line over that, or straight lines or any shape you like and shake over some castor sugar prior to baking in the oven
3. When the cookies are baked, shake some more castor sugar over them
PREHEAT OVEN TO 150oC: For a SUPER QUICK way to making these biscuits, you can use a processor but it's very important that you sieve all your dry ingredients into a bowl and then transfer them, tablespoon at a time into a mini processor, add the cubes of butter, the melted butter and vanilla and press your start button!
You'll know the dough is mixed when it starts to collect at the side of your processor, so press STOP!
Now be very careful of that blade as you gently lift that dough out and place it back in your bowl (where you had sieved your dry ingredients!) and gently knead that dough.
Take some grease proof paper and line a couple of trays
Next we take some of the dough and roll them into a small ball and place on the tray and when you're ready, gently press each ball down and you could use a fork to tenderly decorate each cookie
Bake for 30 minutes and then open the oven door and hopefully they're be nice and golden, then set your timer for another 15 minutes.
Use a stainless steel spatula and lift each cookie gently onto a plate and then shake over some castor sugar..
Now, if all your cookies are the same size, then why not go the extra mile and make some vanilla butter cream or strawberry cream..
Let's see now .. we need 8oz Icing sugar (sieved), 2oz unsalted butter melted, 2 caps of vanilla essence and mix until it soft and creamy. Spread one cookie with strawberry jam and then place a spoon of butter cream on one cookie and the sandwich the other one on top! When you've finished, you can dust them all with icing sugar (these would be similar to the well known "Viennese whirls" without the whirl!
To make the strawberry butter cream, simply follow the same recipe but substitute the vanilla for strawberry essence and one or two little drops of red colouring and and repeat the steps..
Don't forget you could also melt some white, milk or dark chocolate and from a height, drizzle it over all of these amazing cookies ..
What are you waiting for!!? Back to your stations!! :)
HAPPY BAKING!
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