Shortbread recipes

110g butter or marg
50g caster sugar
175g plain flour (typ 405 in German) sifted

Pre heat oven to 150C and prepare a baking sheet with baking paper or grease.

Beat butter until soft with a wooden spoon. Then beat in sugar and flour.
Bring mixture together to form a ball and roll out on a board to a thickness of 3mm. Cut biscuits out with a cutter and bake for approx 30 minutes.

Makes about 15 biscuits. Don't roll out too thin - they will crumble.

Or multiply all the ingredients by 4 and make it 1/2" thick, as is normal in Scotland

+ always use butter not marg or it doesn't come out quite right. Afterwards, sprinkle over some more caster sugar.

Yes, it is better with butter. German unsalted butter is ideal. If you make 4x this quantity, as mike suggests, then it may be worth using a mixer on the slowest speed.

Next thread - shortbread recipes! Do you use rice flour or just normal?

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normal flour (3.5 cups), powder sugar (1.5 cups), cornstarch (1/2cup) and butter (pound) ... super easy, mix with your hands. I cheat and don't roll it out, just press into the cookie sheet after its refridgerated for 30 min, and bake at about 200 for about 10 min.

Normal. Rice flour? As if you can buy rice flour in Scotland (where shortbread orginally comes from)?!*
One part white sugar, two parts butter, three parts plain flour.
Any additional things change the texture and just are not shortbread in my view.
If you buy shortbread, Walkers are just heaven on a plate and easy to find in stores like Hertie.

*you probably can, but it still shouldn't really be in shortbread

Katrina, you are probably right, but I remember having a Women's Weekly Biscuits(Cookies) recipe book once which went to great lengths to encourage the use of rice flour, which is not that easy to find anyway! Mind you what do the Australians know about shortbread?

Some really like the different texture, but I'm just not one of them. Guess that's because my mum and sister used to make loads when I was a child.
If you are used to one type, then the different texture with rice flour just feels odd. Kind of like using margarine for pastry *makes sign of cross*

I would never use anything except butter either. And I won't buy biscuits etc that list vegetable fats, palm oils etc in their ingredients when they are supposed to be "Butter biscuits"

A friend of mine can't eat anything from cow's milk including butter, so what happens when you use margarine in shortbread?

margarine- will not work for Shortbread.

I cannot have any dairy products do to an allergy, but a piece or two of Shortbread will not cause me stomache distress like a glass of milk.

I just use, what ever flour I have, usually the really cheap stuff from Rewe.

ok so i have managed to get the flour, I am however stuggling to translat caster sugar into German when looking for it so i have brought 2 types can someone tell me which one is correct.

Is it

Puder Sucker

or

Fein Sucker

Puderzucker is icing sugar/powder.
Feinzucker is not caster sugar but aargh I forget the English grr. Anyway Feinzucker would work. Castor sugar is Strezucker according to http://dict.leo.org

Feinster Zucker is usually ok in a swap - that's what I tend to use at least. If you feel it isn't fine enough, blast it in a food processor/blade blender. Puderzucker = icing sugar

Use Feinster Zucker. This is more or less the same as caster sugar.

This is an original Scottish shortbread that is truly melt in the mouth if you knead enough.

Catherine's Pride Shortbread

4 c. a.p. flour
1 cup fruit sugar
1/2 cup rice flour
1 lb butter

Mix butter and sugar together by hand ( ie get your hands into it! ). Add rice flour and knead. Add a.p. flour a little at a time and knead for 5 min. Roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness and cut into desired shapes. Prick with a fork then bake at 175C until light golden brown ( approx. 20 min) If rolling thinner cut down baking time appropriately.

It is the kneading that makes the dough nice and flakey and light.

Perhaps 150C is hot enough.