One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干） 57
One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）
August 30, 2013 Kenneth Goh
37 Comments

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

INTRODUCTION

I have mentioned before that my family members like buttery biscuits or cakes. Butter cake without any flavour will definitely top my list of cakes whereas short bread will be my preferred choice of biscuits. Short bread is crumbly in textures and full of buttery aroma and it is addictive as long as I started the first bite.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

When I was searching for short crust pastry for my “short crust pastry moon cake” post, I remember wrongly and instead I searched for short bread. When I read the definition of Wikipedia, it immediately caught my attention.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

Per Wikipedia, it was written that

Shortbread is a type of biscuit (“cookie” in American English) which is traditionally made from one part white sugar, two parts butter, and three parts flour (by weight). The use of plain white (wheat) flour is common today, and other ingredients like ground rice or corn flour are sometimes added to alter the texture. Also, modern recipes often deviate from the pure three ingredients by splitting the sugar portion into equal parts granulated sugar and powdered sugar and many further add a portion of salt. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortbread)

I was amazed by the simple ratio of one part white sugar, two parts butter and three parts of flour. I did not look around for any further recipe and based on these three figures, I prepared my traditional style short bread.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

This is my first attempt and I am generally happy with the results though the shaping still needs improvement. I may try out other recipes in the net and compared the actual differences and what other special ingredients that were added to alter the texture.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）


WHAT IS REQUIRED

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

  • 50 g of icing sugar

  • 100 g of butter

  • 150 g of plain flour

  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）


STEPS OF PREAPRATION

Preparation

  • Preheat your oven to 180  165 degree Celsius.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

  • In a big mixing bowl, place cut butters, vanilla essence, icing sugar, plain flours. Mix and knead until it form a dough.

  • Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a flat sheet of about 1 cm thick.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

  • Shape it into a rectangular shape and use a sharp knife to cut the dough into 1 cm x 4 cm sizes

  • Transfer to the baking tray with a sheet of baking paper. Place the short breads with adequate space to expand.

  • Use a fork or something sharp to make some holes on top of the short breads.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

  • Baked in the oven for 15 – 20 minutes until the colour start to turn golden yellow.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

Additional notes

You can chill the dough in the fridge for 15 minutes before your baking starts. This will help to fix the shape of short bread! This illustration did not include the chilling. Due to the hot temperature in Singapore, The butter melts rather easily therefore chilling will hep to keep the biscuit in shape when you send for baking.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）


CONCLUSION

A very short and straight forward post. I like this for its simple easy to remember recipe. This recipe is simply based on the traditional ratio of 1 sugar, 2 butter and 3 flour without additions of texture altering ingredients. The taste and texture is awesome except the shape is not as regular as what we bought from the stores.  It will be an ideal gift for your friends during festive occasions such as Christmas.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

Overall, I am still very pleased with this adventure. It is so simple yet we pay so much for these biscuits in the supermarkets.

Try and you will know how easy it is. Hope you like the post today and have a nice day ahead. Cheers.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

Second batch of short bread made for the celebration of Teacher’s day 2013.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

Updated on 8 – January 2014

Baking this special batch of rose decorated shortbread biscuits. Recipe is the same except I cut it in difference shape and dust it with dried rose petals.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

This recipe was included in Page 18 and Page 19 of the following E-book. 

For more Chinese New Year related cookies, snack and steamed cake recipes, you can have a copy of “Easy Chinese New Year Recipes – A step by step guide” that was packed with 30 recipes, 60 pages at a reasonable convenience fee of USD3.50. The recipes covered various recipes from auspicious radish cake to nian gao to traditional kuih bangkit to trendy London almond cookies. Of course not forgetting both type of pineapple tarts. You can purchase by clicking the link above. You can either pay using Pay Pal or Credit card account. Please ensure that you have an PDF reader like Acrobat or iBooks in your mobile phone or iPad if you intended to read it in your ipad or mobile phone. Should there be any problems of purchasing, feel free to contact me at kengls@singnet.com.sg and separate arrangement can be made.

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

One, Two, Three…….Let’s Start Making Traditional Short Bread Biscuits (英式传统牛油饼干）

1 - RECIPES,1.1.2 - Cakes and Muffins ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
  1. kellysiew

    Did a double take on the submission to egg event…. You didn’t use any eggs right? I often bake my leftover shortcrust pastry into ‘shortbread’ so I don’t waste them. Simple butter cookies are yummy as long as good butter is used.

    • Kenneth Goh

      Yes, I made a mistake. Before submission, I found that there was no egg so I did not submit! Forget to delete that para! Haha! Thanks. Amended after making this comment.

  2. Emily (@amummytoo)

    These look really pretty 🙂 Pinned and stumbled.

  3. Danelle

    Great recipe! One everyone should have in their recipe file. And I love how you shaped it in the very traditional British style.

  4. Lin

    Any idea if we can replace white icing sugar by brown sugar?
    Thanks.

  5. Angeline xiuxiu

    How abt if don hav vanilla essence? For wat purpose? Thx.

    • Kenneth Goh

      Vanilla essence, in my humble opinion is purely for fragrance and aromatic purposes. Most cakes will add vanilla essence (or scratched vanilla beans). Taste wouldn’t differ much.

    • Angeline xiuxiu

      What can I use to replace it if I don have vanilla essence? Thx for answering. ^_^

    • Kenneth Goh

      Vanilla beans, even worse. Difficult to get and expensive. If you like the vanilla flavor, invest in one bottle which is rather cheap. Can keep for cakes and use it for more than 1 years (subject to expiry date). Otherwise, just omit this, the taste is pretty close.

  6. hermes

    My dipped chocolate kinda melt away pretty fast once out of fridge, quite messy. Any suggestion to hold the chocolate intact without melting ..?

  7. Rebecca Hubbell

    These look simple and delicious! Thanks for sharing!

  8. Britni Newton Vigil

    Yum Kenneth! I love the chocolate dipped ones, those look fantastic.

  9. Michal

    Looks very tasty

  10. bernice

    Can i replace sugar with honey? ? Wanna make for my girl n wanna try to avoid sugar.. thanks

  11. Shereena

    Time to make some shortbread!! Thanks for sharing, it’s so easy to remember.

  12. siokee

    How long can we keep this shortbread?

  13. Theresa

    Hi, you mentioned chilled before bake, does that means cut, chill than bake or chill cut than bake. Sorry if sound silly question. I intend making it over this weekend. Thanks for sharing

    • Kenneth Goh

      Sorry only see this comment now. Chill only when the dough is too soft to cut . It is better to chill cut and bake. If after cutting, it is overly soft, chill again

  14. jellyjock

    Thank you Master Kenneth for sharing this recipe. It is yummy and so simple to remember.

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