85. Lessons in shortbread
Oh, how wrong I was, about so many things, some of them even shortbread related. Plus what I've eaten in London and Iceland in the last 2 months.
What I ate in Iceland
Listen to the podcast for my thoughts on the below!
Braud & Co: Cinnamon bun, vanilla bun, pecan bun, strudel
Christmas Eve dinner at Borg: Cured herring, horseradish herring, soused herring with onion, smoked salmon, reindeer terrine, laufbraud, double smoked lamb, cured lamb, beef wellington, creme brulee.
Hot dogs, chicken burgers, creamy white and blue “ugly” Ljótur cheese
Fridheimer tomato farm: Tomato soup, cheesy olive bread, tomato and apple crumble, cucumber salad
What I made: 5 a day toad in the hole, meringue with frozen raspberries and whipping cream
What I’ve been eating in London
Le Rif Cafe: Lamb and prune tagine, zaalouk, chicken pastilla
Souk el Salaam: Loaded sweet potato with sesame brittle, tunisian fricasée, geymar with kahi, shattar, Zejd olive oil, zaatar.
Mamasons: Calamansi bilog
Fallow: Corn ribs, smoked cheesy cabbage, burger, steak, fries, lemon peel pudding
Home cooking: Lentil lasagne
Recent home baking: lemon maple pudding, raspberry galette des rois, earl grey buns, Icelandic happy marriage cake, mince pies, date and walnut rugelach, lemon and poppy seed cakelets, crumble cake, bienenstich, chocolate walnut bread, halva pistachio cake…
ALSO I made a banging fruit salad featuring golden kiwi fruit, crisp green apple, supremed orange, passionfruit and a pinch of sugar. I strongly recommend using passionfruit instead of orange juice, it makes for a superior fruit salad.
Cookbooks I can't wait for in 2024
Greek-ish by Georgina Hayden. Georgina's last book, Nistisima, was so thoroughly researched, fascinating and respectful of its subject. But I mostly love her for her vibrant personality and cleverness, so I'm excited for a cookbook that showcases her own style in a more playful way.
I'll Bring Dessert by Benjamina Ebuehi. Benjamina is the queen of simple, flavourful, perfect baking. Her recipes always work and they're always utterly delicious.
And probably most of all, The Green Cookbook by Rukmini Iyer. Rukmini Iyer isn't just writing cookbooks. She's out here changing lives. Her Roasting Tin series are a smash hit that changed how many of us cook and eat. The most raggedy cook book I own by far is the Green Roasting Tin. It's covered in stains, the pages are starting to stick together and the spine is starting to rip. In an industry where cookbooks bought are used for max 3 recipes on average by the reader (and I have plenty just sitting collecting dust), Rukmini Iyer's maximum flavour, minimum fuss approach has gotten thousands of us to go back to her books time and again. In my household, they're our main meal planning aid.
All about shortbread
I was wrong about the ingredients.
First of all, ratios. As I said in episode 1, the classic ratio (at least in Britain) is - by weight - 3 parts flour, 2 parts butter, 1 part sugar. But now I’ve tried various recipes that are wildly different from this and I think I’m a convert to the extremely luxurious 8 parts flour, 7 parts butter, 4 parts sugar.
Secondly, what about these basics?
FLOUR.
I still mostly work with plain / all purpose flour but using a portion of a gluten free flour makes shortbread sandier - cornflour, finely ground rice flour etc.
BUTTER.
I use high fat “European style” butter as it’s the norm here, but I flit between salted and unsalted and both work. I use salt when using unsalted, and use less or leave it out when using salted.
SUGAR.
I still mainly use caster sugar (superfine), but sometimes I use icing sugar and sometimes I use a mix of the both. Icing sugar makes shortbread more tender, caster keeps it sturdier, granulated makes it crunchy. Coarse sugar is lovely on top as well for extra crunch.
ADDITIONS.
I’ve gotten more adventurous with flavourings since this podcast began as I read and learn more! Citrus zest is still always a winner for me though. I was bowled over by using spices I normally associate with savoury food - see nigella and cumin shortbread below. (Very much not my idea - both are popular cookie flavourings in South Asia.)
I was wrong about how to to make it.
Top-to-bottom, start-to-finish, just wrong.
COMBINING THE INGREDIENTS
OK, I wasn’t exactly wrong about it, but creaming softened butter and sugar is just as good as cutting cold butter into flour. Whichever is your preference is good. Also, you can bake it while the butter is soft - it isn’t meant to be flaky like pastry so it doesn’t matter one bit whether the butter is soft or cold. If you want to cut shapes out, however, you will need to chill it, and you may want to make it less buttery so it holds the shape better.
BAKING TIMES AND TEMPERATURES
I used to be in the hotter-and-faster camp, then I ate the twice-baked pecan shortbread by the Queen of Cookies Susan Spungen and realised I was wrong. Lower and slower makes the shortbread more roasty-toasty. It keeps the gorgeous butter flavour without it being greasy.
With the 8:7:4 ratio, you definitely need to have a lower and slower approach, so the water in the butter cooks out - and this type of shortbread is better the next day!
Here are a few recipes that shifted my mindset about this simplest and most perfect of baked goods.
LUXURY ALL BUTTER SPICED SHORTBREADS
I couldn't stop eating these. The first batch I made with nigella seed were so good that I wanted to continue experimenting with spices I would normally use in savoury food, so I kept reading and kept baking and thus we have FOUR variations: nigella/kalonji, caraway/ajwan/carom, roasted cumin/jeera and dhania/coriander.
First up, KALONJI / NIGELLA SEED. It did remind me of naan breads and leans towards savoury, but it was also great. This is a popular flavour for tea cookies in Bangladesh. This is using the aforementioned 8:7:4 ratio. Adapted from a recipe in Sohla el-Waylyy’s book Start Here.
180g flour
160g unsalted butter
1/2 tsp flaky salt or 1/4 tsp fine salt
90g sugar - caster or icing
1 1/2 tsp nigella seeds
Grease and line a 9” round baking dish.
Mix the salt and flour. Rub/cut the butter into the flour until you have a bread crumb consistency. Stir in the sugar and kalonji/nigella seeds. Press into the baking dish.
Bake at 180C/ 350F for about 30 minutes. Score the shortbread with a knife into wedges before leaving to cool.
AJWAN/ CARAWAY VARIATION:
Especially popular in Gujurat in cookies, caraway is also common in historic British baking, living on in ‘seed cake’ (which I’ve covered in a previous episode). Use 2 tsp (untoasted) and stir them in to the crumbs before pressing the dough in the tin. Caraway has an aniseedy, roasty flavour with a hint of citrus.
CUMIN/ JEERA VARIATION:
Jeera cookies are popular in India and Pakistan. Use 1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, toast them for a few minutes in a dry pan until fragrant and grind in a pestle and mortar. Add them to the flour. DO NOT use pre-ground cumin, it just isn't the same thing at all. Roasted ground cumin is fragrant, well-rounded and leans towards savoury.
DHANIA/CORIANDER SEED VARIATION
Coriander seeds are so fragrant and have an almost citrussy flavour. It baffles me we aren’t using them more in baking. They are quite mild so use 1 tablespoon, toast them in a dry pan for a couple of minutes until fragrant then bash in a pestle and mortar to a powder before adding to the crumbs.
Twice-Baked Pecan Shortbread
These are proof that we should be adding ground nuts to shortbread, that we should be baking it low and slow, and that it can be even better if baked twice! The strong taste of vanilla is heavenly. I love to make these at Christmas but they can be enjoyed year-round.
Adapted from the Queen of Cookies (and vegetable cookery) Susan Spungen. These are cooked really low and slow to bring out all the nutty and buttery flavours.
226 g unsalted soft butter
110 g light brown sugar
75 g granulated or caster (superfine) sugar
110 g finely ground pecans, plus extra pecan halves to decorate, if wanted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
320g all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon coarse salt
For finishing the cookies:
50 g granulated or caster (superfine) sugar
1 teaspoon ground vanilla bean (ground in a spice grinder) or 2 tsp vanilla sugar
Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the vanilla and ground pecans and combine. Add the flour and salt and combine.
Press into a buttered and lined 8 inch square or 9 inch round tin. Cover and chill until firm - at least an hour.
Preheat the oven to 300F/ 150C. Score the shortbread into 16 squares or wedges. Bake for about 60 minutes, until golden. Mix the vanilla and 50g sugar together on a plate or shallow bowl.
Cool the shortbread for about 15 minutes, keeping the oven on. Cut along the score lines. Roll each piece in the vanilla sugar and place on a baking paper lined baking tray, spaced apart a bit.
Bake for 15 minutes. Cool then eat.