Ingredients
100 g plain wholewheat flour
100 g plain white flour
50 g cornflour
50 g semolina or ground rice
2 tsp cinnamon (or more)
225 g soft butter or margarine
100 g caster sugar
Directions
Set the oven to 170 C (325 F, Gas Mark 3) and grease a 19 cm x 29 cm
(7-1/2 inch x 11-1/2 inch) shallow tin with butter.
Sift the flours, semolina or ground rice and cinnamon into a large
bowl or food processor, adding the residue of bran from the sieve.
Then put in the butter or margarine and the sugar. Whizz, or beat,
all the ingredients together until they form a soft dough which
leaves the sides of the bowl clean.
Press this into the tin, leveling the surface by pressing with the
back of a metal spoon. Then prick the surface all over with a fork.
Bake for about 45 minutes, until the shortbread is set and quite
crispy on top and very lightly tinged with gold. It's more tricky to
tell when these are done than with normal shortbreads because they
are already rather brown! If you are in doubt, you can lift up one of
the end pieces and look underneath it to see if it looks done
underneath. If not, carefully put it back and let the shortbread cook
for a bit longer. When it's done, cut it into sections, if you
haven't already done so, and leave it to cool and crisp up in the tin.
This shortbread keeps well in a tin for several days, if it gets the
chance, and also freezes well. It defrosts very quickly; you can use
it almost straight from the freezer.
Source: Rose Elliot's Vegetarian Christmas Typed for you by Karen
Mintzias
Servings: 24 pieces
Cinnamon Shortbreads Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Bread; Breads
The History of Recipes
Historians have tracked the existance of recipes far back into the distant past, in fact as far into history as the ancient Egyptians, and maybe further still. In practice though, these, old records were just very basic hieroglyphic or cunieform recipes for preparing food.
Fascinatingly, the most ancient recipe in existence, according to academics are some ancient tablets in ancient Sumerian describing the baking of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making people feel `blissful`. During the time of the Roman Empire a roman called Apicius created a few documents showing how to cook the recipes cooked by wealthy Romans. In his publication, he tells us how the meals of wealthy Romans were separated into starters, entrees and desserts, something we still use today. Aspicius also tells us how the early Romans were skilled in the use of a wide range of spices, including some familiar names like bay, rue and parsley. As our culinary historical trip moves on a few more years we find some interesting books dating from the 14th Century - a cookery book titled `Forme of Cury`, and another, similary called `Curye on Inglish`. Despite their titles, they are nothing to do with the spicy food that is familiar to us all today, but rather recipes for the types of food prepared by the chefs of the rich and wealthy people of the period. In the fifteenth century, people returning from the crusades brought us a variety of spices and herbs from Arab countries, including coriander, parsley, and rosemary. The introduction of these new culinary ideas was responsible for a surge in books on cooking, most of which still exist in private libraries. Over the following few hundred years, the upper classes strove to serve up the most exotic banquets, and as a consequence, the best cooks and their recipes were at a premium. However, it was during the 1800s that fine cooking and recipe books really came of age. Mrs Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Merritt Farmer in the USA, devoted much of their lives to assembling, testing, and writing down recipes that were common in the better off homes of the day. By the arrival of the 20th century, cookbooks were greatly in demand mostly due to more people being able to read, people having more spare time and having more disposable income. |
We hope you enjoy this Cinnamon Shortbreads recipe.
