Raspberry Shortbread

When I hear the word shortbread, I think of men in kilts, bagpipes, and Walkers Shortbread. Shortbread is a classic Scottish dessert that consists of three basic ingredients: flour, sugar, and butter. (Butter, my favorite!) This dessert resulted from medieval biscuit bread, which was a twice-baked, enriched bread roll dusted with sugar and spices and hardened into a hard, dry, sweetened biscuit called a rusk. Shortbread can be found in as a large circle, individual rounds, or cut as fingers.

Either way you slice it, shortbread is delicious. We are trying out a few recipes for shortbread and since I'm enjoying way too much shortbread, I figured I would do a recipe on the subject. This recipe actually comes from Epicurious.com. It's not the recipe we use, but it is still a tasty treat and is fairly easy to make. The only time consuming factor is the freezing of the dough for a few hours or overnight. If you have to make and eat these all in one day, make the dough in the morning and bake in the afternoon/evening. I just made the dough and left if overnight and baked a tray of these the next day. Enjoy.



Ingredients:  1 lb. butter, room temperature, 4 egg yolks, 4 c flour, 2 c sugar, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp sea salt, 1 c raspberry jam, room temperature,  1/2 c powdered sugar

Instructions: (1) Cream butter in a mixer then add egg yolks and mix well. (2) In a medium bowl, add sugar, flour, baking powder, sea salt and whisk. (3) Add sugar mixture to butter mixture and mix until incorporated. (4) Turn dough out onto a floured surface and form 2 balls. Place each ball in plastic wrap and freeze for 2 hours or overnight. (5) Preheat oven to 350F. Take one roll of dough out of the oven and grate it by hand or with a grating disk in a food processor. Evenly cover a 9x13" baking pan or a 10" tart pan with the shreds of dough. (6) Spread jam, using the back of a spoon, to within 1/2-inch of the edge all the way around. Grate other ball of dough over the entire surface of jam. (7) Bake for 30-40 minutes until lightly brown. Sprinkle with powdered sugar as soon as they come out of the oven and cool on a wire rack. Cut into squares with a serrated knife.

*I use homemade raspberry jam from raspberries we grow in our garden. I particularly like the jam with seeds. The grating of the shortbread doesn't have to be a fine grate, coarse works best. I sprinkle a little more than a dusting of powdered sugar on the finished project. I think that comes from eating beignets when I lived in Louisiana.