Ingredients
1 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cup flour
2 pinch salt
Directions
Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and
fluffy. Mix flour and salt, then beat into butter mixture until
thoroughly blended, to make a soft dough.
To make bars: on work surface dusted with flour, pat dough into
rectangle 1/2" thick, 2" wide, and about 17" long. Use knife or
fluted pastry cutter to cut into 1" bars. Use spatula to transfer
bars to ungreased cookie sheet, leaving 1" between bars. Prick each
bar with fork several times. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until lightly
colored. Do not overbake; the bars should not brown. Let cool on
cookie sheet for one minute, then carefully transfer to wire racks to
finish cooling.
To make wedges: Dust your hands and ungreased cookie sheet with
flour. Pat dough into ball. Pat ball into flat disk about 1/2" thick
and 7" in diameter on cookie sheet. With edge of plastic ruler dusted
with flour, mark disk in 8 wedges, cutting about halfway through
dough, and prick dough all over and crimp edges with fork. Bake for
30 minutes, then take cookie sheet out and cut through shortbread on
marked lines. Return shortbread to oven for five more minutes. Let
wedges cool on cookie sheet for one minute, then carefully transfer
to wire racks to finish cooling.
Nut Shortbread: add 1/4 c finely chopped toasted pecans, almonds,
walnuts, or hazelnuts to flour mixture.
Chocolate Chip Shortbread: add 1/4 c miniature semisweet chocolate
chips to flour mixture.
Orange-Chocolate Chip Shortbread: add 1 t grated orange rind and 1/4 c
miniature semisweet chocolate chips to flour mixture.
Lemon Shortbread: add 1 t grated lemon rind to flour mixture.
Source: _The Christmas Kitchen_ by Lorraine Bodger MM by Sylvia
Steiger, THE.STEIGERS on GEnie, 71511,2253 on CI$, GT Cookbook echo
moderator at net/node 004/005
Servings: 16 servings
Christmas Shortbread Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Bread; Breads; Christmas; Holiday
The History of Recipes
Written cooking instructions as a concept can be traced way back into antiquity, in fact as far back into history as the ancient Egyptians, and possibly even further than that. Having said that, sadly, these ancient records were just very basic hieroglyphic recipes for food preparation.
In an interesting twist, the most ancient recipe discovered, according to historians are some tablets in the Sumerian language which show the baking of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making anyone who tried it feel exhilarated. Continuing our culinary historical journey, we find some interesting books dating from the 1300s - one book titled `Forme of Cury`, and another named `Curye on Inglish`. Amusingly, these books are not about the curry that appears on menues today, but rather recipes for the types of meals enjoyed by the rich and wealthy people of that time. Over the succeeding few centuries, the powerful and wealthy strove to offer the most exotic banquets, and consequentially chefs and their recipes were greatly in demand. Even so, it wasn`t until the nineteenth century that fine cookery and recipe publications became really popular. Mrs Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Merritt Farmer in the USA, spent years to collecting, trying out, and publishing recipes that were common in the better off homes of the day. The TV revolution gave us TV chefs and the accompanying recipe books. Which brings us neatly to the present day and the invention of the internet, permitting everybody to access massive numbers of recipes such as those found on sites such as the one you are reading now. |
We hope you enjoy this Christmas Shortbread recipe.
