Day 9: Traditional Scottish treat

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/12/2023 (1030 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Today, our annual baked-goods spectacular brings a simple but delicious favourite from reader Jeanie Dubberley.

This was my mother’s recipe. I don’t know where it came from originally — possibly one of the weekly English women’s magazines that she used to buy. She valued the simplicity of the traditional recipe, because her own mother (who had died when Mum was a toddler) has been born in Glasgow before emigrating to Canada with her large family when she was nine years old (1903).

Mum insisted, and I agree, that real shortbread has only these three ingredients; add anything else — vanilla, lemon zest, chocolate chips, or anything else — and the result is a very nice cookie, but not shortbread!

My earliest memories of this shortbread are of my mother’s beautiful hands, creaming the butter and sugar, working in the flour, kneading, rolling out, and cutting the dough, then tenderly placing the cookies on the cookie sheet. Eventually, she let me help, and I was thrilled to be entrusted with the awesome responsibility.

Traditional Scottish Shortbread

500 ml (2 cups) butter, at room temperature
250 ml (1 cup) golden (light brown) sugar
750 ml (3 cups) flour

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cream together butter and sugar — my mother always insisted this was best done with one’s hands. The warmth of hands helped the butter and sugar cream together more completely.

Add the flour, still with your hands, until it is thoroughly incorporated and the dough can be gathered into a compact ball.

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface about a dozen times, until it starts cracking. Roll the dough out to about 1/4-inch thickness and cut with desired cookie cutters, or form into a neat rectangle and cut into strips, then into individual bars.

Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until beginning to turn very pale golden-brown around the edges.

Cool on baking sheet set atop wire racks, about 15 minutes. Remove carefully from pan and continue cooling on racks. Store in tightly covered cookie tin.

— Submitted by Jeanie Dubberley

Looking for more Christmas treats? The Free Press has stored dozens of recipes from past years at wfp.to/cookies.

Eva Wasney
Reporter

Eva Wasney has been a reporter with the Free Press Arts & Life department since 2019. Read more about Eva.

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