This is a guest post by Cate Brickell from Life Behind a Purple Door
Shortbread is the easiest of all the Christmas cookies to make. In fact, it’s so simple that this is the year that I’m going to throw the kids in the kitchen and let them have at it.
I recently discovered that there’s a major difference in American recipes for shortbread, versus traditional English or Scottish recipes – rice flour. And after testing several recipes over the last few weeks, I prefer my shortbread with the subtle crunch of rice flour.
The addition of chocolate chips gives this shortbread a small punch of chocolate flavour without overpowering the subtle flavours of the traditional recipe (if you love the punch of chocolate, you can find chocolate shortbread over on my blog).
YOU WILL NEED
- 250g butter, softened
- ½ cup icing (confectioners) sugar
- 1 ¾ cups plain flour
- ¼ cup rice flour
- ½ cup chocolate chips
Instructions
Place flours in bowl and whisk together to combine
Place butter in separate bowl, add sugar, and mix until pale and fluffy
Add flour mix and choc chips, stir until a ball forms
Roll out dough between two sheets of baking (parchment) paper
Place dough on tray, and freeze 30 minutes
Cut into desired size, and bake 180°C (my small pieces baked for 14min)
Cate is the baker behind the purple door. A blogger with over ten years of posts, Cate loves Christmas and baking, and sometimes crafting with her kids. Sharing her parenting stories of life with toddlers and teens and in-betweens, Cate loves Pinterest and Facebook best.
10 comments
This sounds delicious. Have you tried leaving this in the freezer for longer than 30 minutes so you could easily bake fresh another day?
I haven’t tried it but if you do then let me know!
This recipe has been a big hit with my work colleagues; I used milk baking chocolate chopped into generous chunks and made a double and then a quadruple batch, and every time it has turned out just so beautifully! I used to try to make shortbread, and every time it was gooey and tasteless, but this is truly divine!
Since I’ve been doing multiple batches at once, I’ve been dividing the dough up into equal pieces, rolling out between separate pieces of baking paper, and then stacking the flat rounds on top of each other in the freezer. I baked them a round at a time, leaving the others in the freezer, and despite the additional freezing time, each tray baked precisely the same, so hopefully that answers Kate’s question, at least in the short-term context 🙂
Brittany thanks so much for this feedback! Very happy to hear that you and your colleagues love these chocolate chips shortbread too. Kat x
So glad this has been a hit with your workmates!
Freezing the dough for longer (up to 6 months is usually the recommended time) shouldn’t be an issue, just be careful to place in an airtight container, raw doughs can take on any smells that your freezer might have (I’ve still got lemons and oranges in mine from last summer, everything has a slight lemon tang to it 🙂 )
Hi the batter seemed more like a cake batter rather than a biscuit dough is this normal?
No, it shouldn’t be like a cake batter. Was your butter too soft (or melted)? I can’t think of what else might have caused it
Perfect crunch I will be making again with butterscotch pieces 🙂
That’s awesome news, and butterscotch sounds fabulous!
Ooh butterscotch pieces sounds delicious!