Just 4 ingredients make this delicious, melt-in-the-mouth lemon shortbread
The original recipe I used for this bake was for lemon and ginger shortbread. I’m not the greatest fan of ginger, so just left that ingredient out. I also don’t have the tin the original recipe recommends for this bake (more on that below), but my alternative tin certainly didn’t impact the flavour of the shortbread 🙂
Ingredients (makes 12 slices of shortbread)
- 100 g / 3.5 oz butter, plus a little more for greasing your tin
- 50 g / 1.5 oz caster sugar, plus a little extra for dusting
- Zest of 1 large lemon
- 175 g / 6 oz plain flour
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees C (or 130 if you have a fan oven)/ Gas Mark 2/ 300 degrees F. Grease and line a circular baking tin. The original recipe recommends using a 22-cm loose-bottomed fluted tart tin. I don’t happen to have one of those, so I used my 22.5-cm/9-inch circular springform tin. Apart from not giving the shortbread nicely crinkled edges, it did a fine job. And if you don’t have a loose-bottomed/springform tin, I wouldn’t worry. If you line your round tin properly, you should be able to run a knife around the edge of your baked shortbread and lift it out of the baking tin.
Beat the butter until soft. If you have an electric mixer, I’d let it do the hard work. Once soft, add the sugar and the grated lemon zest. Stir to combine. You really do need to use all the zest from a large lemon. Even using all the zest you can see in the picture below, the resulting lemon flavour was subtle.
Stir in the flour. I let the mixer do an initial stir to get something on the verge of resembling a dough.
Then I took the bowl off the mixing stand and finished the mixing using my hands to bring the dough together.
Flatten the dough into your tin until you have a smooth, even layer. Prick the top of the dough with a fork several times (I may have gone a bit far… but I liked the pattern!).
Bake for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 5 minutes before turning out of your tin (careful not to burn yourself). Turn onto a cutting board and slice into wedges.
And that’s it! This will be ok to store for 2 weeks in an airtight container. But I doubt it will last that long!
This lemon shortbread melts in the mouth and goes perfectly with a cup of tea or coffee.
Looking for some other biscuit/ cookie recipes? Try these!
Chocolate and vanilla, two-tone heart and flower biscuits.
Claire Huston / Art and Soul
Trying this next week! Although I do not own an electric mixer. I guess my wrist will have to work! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Uf! In that case, make sure you leave the butter out of the fridge and cut it into cubes before trying to work it. I like to think that all that hand-mixing works off so many calories you need to have a few bits of shortbread to replace them 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Will do, thank you for the tip 🙂 Haha, good thinking, I’ll eat double after the effort.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m salivating over here! I love shortbread! I need to make these someday. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
It was very nice 🙂 Obviously “was” because I made it 2 days ago and it vanished!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sounds like a delicious treat Claire! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
It was lovely. And much easier to make than I thought it would be! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
We love anything lemony!! And my hubby loves shortbread – so I may just have to bite the bullet and make this one! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Only 4 ingredients! That’s crazy 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I know! I’d always thought it was harder to make. No idea why! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sounds like a easy and delicious recipe 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Everything you make looks so good. Are you a pastry chef? It looks amazing! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! I wish I were a pastry chef 🙂 I don’t like cooking much, but love baking!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m a big fan of shortbread and this looks yummy! What was the ginger ingredient that you left out?
LikeLiked by 1 person
It was crystallised ginger, finely chopped. I’m not a great fan of ginger… love shortbread though! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: WWW Wednesday 10th August 2016 | Art and Soul
I’m making this with the kids this afternoon! I am a hopeless baker so I’ll let you know how it goes…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Brilliant! Good luck! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Recipe | Lemon shortbread – Site Title