Grandma's Shortbread

These biscuits were made for a friend who LOVES shortbread. I'm no expert on shortbread; I dont bake it and I hardly ever eat it. The closest I come to shortbread, is the 'shortbread' in the Arnott's Family Assorted packets, that our Nonna buys by the truck load when they go on special. So I thought surely a recipe past down the generations would be pretty trustworthy. It was.

This recipe features in Julie Goodwin's first book; Our Family Table. It's a recipe passed down to her from her Grandmother and it was delicious. It may have a lot more ingredients than standard shortbread but when the outcome was a delicate, soft, buttery, melt in your mouth yumminess I'm sold.

Shortbread
Recipe: Grandma's Shortbread- Our Family Table by Julie Goodwin

makes ~40

250g unsalted butter
3/4 cup (110g) icing sugar mixture, sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup (70g) cornflour
2 cups (200g) self-raising flour
good pinch of salt
caster sugar, extra, for dipping

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced) and line grease two large baking trays.

Using electric beaters, beat the butter and icing sugar until light and creamy, then beat in the vanilla essence.

Sift the cornflour, self-raising flour and salt into a bowl. Add this dry mix into the butter mixture and gently mix using a butter knife. Keep mixing until the mixture comes together.

Gently roll the dough into small balls about the size of a walnut. Dip the tops in the sugar and put them on the prepared tray, ~5cm apart. Flatten slightly with a fork.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until just starting to colour underneath. The biscuits will still be soft to the touch so leave them on their trays for 10 minutes to become firm, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Store in an airtight container.

NB* When you take the shortbread out of the oven sprinkle each cookie with more caster sugar.

I rolled my shortbread into balls, however other bloggers have had success rolling it out and cutting it out into shapes.