Scottish Shortbread

Each year, I make my mom’s recipe for shortbread and top each round with a colourful gumdrop. These cookies have been with me since my childhood and bring back sentimental Christmas memories.  Laura carries on the tradition in Germany. This year she got inventive and used the cardboard tubes from wrapping paper as forms to make her cookies nice and round.

The shortbread of my childhood is unequaled, because the memories play as important a role as the ingredients. But there's always room for more shortbread! That's why my new tradition is to bake 2 kinds of shortbread every Christmas: my mom's and my friend Cammi's. Well, I say "new", but I just realized I've been baking her shortbread recipe for a couple of decades now. People love it, and this is borne out by the fact that she bakes over 50 rounds each Christmas.  I only bake 3, but I enjoy every bite.

Her shortbread was the first recipe for which I had to weigh the ingredients and it seemed rather exotic at the time. Cammi’s shortbread has a subtly different texture from my mom’s but each is delicious in its own way.

According to Cammi, one of the important steps to this shortbread is to let the butter sit out on the counter for at least 24 hours. You can even leave it out for a couple of days - assuming you have weather similar to Scotland and not the Bahamas. I don’t know why it works, but trust me, it does.

I make Cammi’s shortbread in a mold, tip it onto a baking sheet, and bake several rounds at once. I have used some lovely stone molds, but since the cookies must be baked right in the mold, making large amounts takes a long time because you have to cool and clean the mold between batches.

I bought the plastic thistle mold eons ago from Regal Gifts (are they even still around?) and it works perfectly every time.  The stone molds are very pretty, but a bit finicky and as I explained, slow down the baking process. They forms need to be floured by dipping in flour and then shaking off the excess.

Cammi’s Scottish Shortbread
8 oz butter (that has been sitting out for 24 hours)
4 oz berry sugar (finer than granulated sugar)
2 oz rice flour
10 oz flour

Cream butter and sugar until light-coloured at medium speed.
Mix flours together and mix into creamed butter.
Roll out and cut, or press into shortbread mild that has been well floured.
Bake @ 325º for 20 minutes or until lightly browned.