Grandma's Recipes: Christmas Shortbread.

Who doesn't love shortbread at Christmas? 

A week or so ago I was very luckily given a book of my grandma's hand written recipes. This has so many recipes in that have been thoroughly tried and tested throughout the years and I feel so incredibly privileged to be the new owner of this little book. My Grandma is an amazing cook and although she isn't able to cook up these herself any more, I can recreate them as best as possible to keep her recipes and the family cooking going. What I thought would be great is to try out these recipes and document them on my blog not only for my own satisfaction but also because seriously some of these recipes are damn good and I think you would love them. 

So, as it's Christmas time I thought 'What goes down great at Christmas?.... SHORTBREAD!'. This is a really simple recipe that even a complete beginner in the kitchen can't muck up. These are so fool proof but look like they required effort. So without further ado, here is the first in the "Grandma's Recipes:" series...

What you will need (to make 12 shortbread biscuits):

• 1 oz Golden Caster Sugar
• 2oz Butter
• 3oz Plain Flour

(NB: I actually doubled this recipe and made around 27 biscuits but this will vary depending on how thick you want them) 

Step 1: Cream the Sugar and Butter together until almost white. 

Step 2: Sieve in the Flour and mix until a stiff paste. 

Step 3: Roll the dough to the required thickness, mine is around 5mm thick (roughly) - Be careful here as the dough is likely to crumble and break. 

Step 4: Cut dough to required shape (I used a star cookie cutter but you can use whatever you have) and then place on a lightly greased baking tray.

Step 5: Cook on a moderate heat (180 degrees) for around 13 minutes or until lightly golden.

 Step 6 (Optional): If you want to feel really festive, Mix 1 tbsp of Icing Sugar with a sprinkle of Cinnamon (you can adjust the amount to your personal tastes) then once the biscuits are cooled lightly sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the top. 

There you have it!! Dead simple. It takes around 30 minutes to do everything start to finish so a great quick recipe. What I loved about this is that it's so simple to duplicate this recipe if you want to make more... and trust me you will always want more!

I hope you enjoyed today's post. It's one that means a lot to me so I would love to hear your feedback.