If you like shortbread, then there’s nothing to beat home made shortbread. This almond shortbread is my favourite, but I do also love plain shortbread biscuits.
Makes 10 Preparation time 15 mins Cooking time 25 mins
Method
1. Pre-heat the oven to 150C.
2. Grease a baking tray with a little bit of butter.
3. Soften the remaining butter with a wooden spoon or an electric whisk in a large bowl.
4. Add the sugar and vanilla to the butter and whisk it in until it is soft and fluffy.
5. Then add all the dry ingredients and work them in with a wooden spoon.
6. Finish off combining everything with your hands until you have a smooth dough.
7. Roll out the dough on a sugared flat surface until it is about 4mms thick.
8. Use a 7cm circular cutter (or another shape) to cut out biscuit rounds, then re-roll the trimmings and cut out as many more as you can.
9. Place the circles on the greased baking tray and bake for 20 – 25 minutes (until pale golden in colour)
10. Leave the biscuits on the baking tray for at least 5 minutes before lifting them off, as they tend to crumble and break while still hot.
Ingredients
125g butter, plus a little extra to grease the baking tray
60g caster sugar, plus extra for rolling out the dough
100g plain flour
50g ground almonds
30g fine semolina
Few drops of pure vanilla extract (optional)
Grated zest of 1 lemon (optional)
Additional Information
The addition of semolina makes the biscuits a bit crunchier. If you prefer plain shortbread then substitute 50g extra flour instead of the ground almonds and if you don’t like the idea of semolina, then substitute 30g of flour for the semolina as well. The biscuits do taste good even without the vanilla and lemon zest, though I would stick to butter instead of using margarine; I think butter is essential to the taste of good shortbread biscuits!
Nutrition Information
| Nutrition | per 100g | per portion | RDA women | RDA men | RDA child | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Energy | 530 kcal | 195 kcal | 10% | 8% | 11% | |
| Protein* | 7.3 g | 2.7 g | 6% | 5% | 11% | |
| Carbohydrate | 45 g | 16 g | 7% | 5% | 7% | |
| Total Sugars* | 18 g | 6.7 g | 7% | 6% | 8% | |
| Total Fat | 36 g | 13 g | 19% | 14% | 19% | |
| Saturated Fat | 19 g | 6.9 g | 34% | 23% | 34% | |
| Mono Unsaturates* | 4.7 g | 1.7 g | ||||
| Polyunsaturates* | 1.9 g | 0.7 g | ||||
| Fibre* | 2.0 g | 0.7 g | 3% | 3% | 5% | |
| Salt | 0.1 g | 0.0 g | 0% | 0% | 1% |