Festive Shortbread

There is something very English (or Scottish I should say!) about shortbread at Christmas. It appears in beautiful tins and packages in every food store around this time of year but it is so easy to make yourself and so much better than anything you can buy. This recipe is from Martha Stewart. Apparently she made this at the request of Ralph Lauren many years ago as holiday gifts for his friends and he always adored eating it! If it's good enough for Ralph then it's good enough for me!

Here's the finished shortbread cooling on a wire rack.

  

My addition to the recipe is to add the seeds of one vanilla pod to the butter when it is creaming. The vanilla flavour makes them more seasonal I think.

240g of room temperature, unsalted butter is creamed for about 5 minutes, with the seeds added for the last minute. You should be able to make out the black flecks in the creamy butter here.

The dry ingredients are then added; 2 cups of flour, 1 1/4 teaspoons of salt and 3/4 cup of icing sugar, all sifted together first. Add slowly to the creamed butter with the mixer on slow speed too.

The mixture is pressed into a 10-inch, loose bottom, fluted tart pan using clingfilm until it is smooth. Chill for about 30 minutes, cut into 8 wedges, prick with a fork and bake at 150 degrees celsius for about an hour, or until the shortbread is golden brown and firm in the centre.

A video of Martha Stewart making the recipe can be found here. The shortbread will keep for a couple of weeks in an air-tight container bit it's so delicious it probably won't last that long!