On Saturday the sun shone, Tom cleared the vege garden (formerly the waist high weed patch) and I dried most of the washing outside. I also felt alive for the first time in about a week and took pleasure in making shortbread and lemonade.
I decided at the start of the year that one of my goals would be to make shortbread. Armed with three ingredients and Tom’s Mum’s recipe I did that on Saturday (and added some lemon zest because I’m fancy).
It was super easy to make although I definitely need to explore a better method – my shortbread kind of all fused together in the oven and I think it’s because I melted rather than softened the butter. I also need to be more aggressive with the fork marks and should probably cut it thicker and not put it in the fridge first. And I need to cook it longer. All things that mean I’ll just have to make it again some time soon so I can improve.
I also finally made Dee’s lemonade syrup. I did two versions – a sugarfree one and a sugar one with half the sugar (which still turns out sweet and syrupy). I was a lot less fussy about peeling the lemons and once I’d squeezed them I just chucked them all in the bowl* – I had to sieve it later so figured why bother doing things neatly?
I’ve been really enjoying the syrup with boiling water. If you’ve got lots of lemons or fancy a recipe with less sugar and more kapow then use Helen’s lemon cordial.
*Our lemons come from our own trees so I know they’re not sprayed. If yours are from the supermarket you should probably wash the skins first.
I am a fan of Annabel Langbein’s shortbread recipe, it is incredibly easy and always well-received:
Beat together 250g butter and 125g icing sugar until fluffy. I soften the butter and beat it and the sugar with electric beaters. Add 250g flour and 50g custard powder (adds a lovely vanilla flavour to the finished product), I stir these in with a wooden spoon. The recipe says to press the dough into a slab though I make a triangle shape because that’s how my grandmother used to do it. I wrap this in glad wrap, put it on a tray and chill for about 30 mins then cut slices off, prick with a fork and bake for 30 mins at 150 celsius on a greased or lined tray. (The recipe says to roll out the dough and cut out shapes but I am old school and just do the slice). Makes about two trays of bikkies, enough to fill our biscuit tin.
I am going to try making this tomorrow with chocolate chips as a special request for a friend, my expectation is that it will result in quite a full-on biscuit but I am happy to experiment.
Annabel Langbein also offers a festive variation where you add 50g of polenta, 1tsp of crushed cardamom seeds and the grated rind of one lemon.
Happy shortbreading all!
Thanks so much for typing all this out Katy. I’d forgotten about triangle shortbread and will definitely give this a go.
I got a bit carried away with the need to share! Good luck
I miss being in your circumstances. Especially when I read of them on your beautiful blog. The first time my nonna and pop came to visit me in featherston was a big deal, my nonna taught me shortbread and i wanted to recreate this and found an amazing recipe that included fresh lavendar! I hope you will enjoy the same, of course butter in himself is scrumptious but letting a flavour ride his tasty undercurrent is very exciting… there is a nice bush near the senior citizens club. Have you read about why short bread is called that ? it is worth a look. AMEN.
I’ve been really enjoying your blog, can’t remember who sent me here when I moved to the Wairarapa… Anyhow – how did the sugar free one come out?
Thanks Kathy. Sugar free wasn’t as nice and syrupy because it didn’t have all that sugar and when I quizzed Tom he said it just tasted like lemon and sweetener – I tend to agree. The sugar version was delicious – especially with boiling water.