Petticoat Tails Shortbread

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Baking tray
• •Baking parchment
• •Sharp knife
• •Small glass or roundcutter (about 4cm) for the centre vent
• •Fork for pricking

Instructions

1. 1

   Cream butter and sugar

   The butter needs to be properly soft. Not melted, not greasy, just yielding when you press a thumb into it. Beat it with the sugar in a bowl until pale and a little fluffy. Three or four minutes by hand, less with a wooden spoon and conviction. You're not trying to whip air into it the way you would for a sponge. You just want the sugar to stop feeling gritty.

   If you've forgotten to take the butter out, cut it into small cubes and leave it on a plate near the oven for fifteen minutes. Don't microwave it. Soft butter and melted butter are different ingredients.
2. 2

   Add the flours

   Sift the plain flour and rice flour together with the salt. Tip them into the butter mixture and work them in gently with a spatula or your hands. The rice flour is what gives shortbread its particular sandy crumb, that quiet crispness that turns to dust on the tongue. Cornflour will do if you haven't got rice flour, but if you can find it, use it. Stop the moment the dough comes together. Overworked shortbread goes tough, and there's no rescuing it.

3. 3

   Shape the round

   Tip the dough onto a sheet of baking parchment and bring it together with your hands. Pat it gently into a disc, then roll or press it into a round about 22cm across and roughly the thickness of a pound coin. Don't agonize over the shape. Use a plate as a guide if it helps, then trim the edges with a knife. Crimp the edge with your fingers if you want it to look like the petticoat it's named after, or leave it plain. Your kitchen, your rules.

4. 4

   Score and chill

   Lift the parchment and the round onto a baking tray. Mark a small circle in the centre with the rim of a glass, about 4cm across, pressing down lightly without cutting through. Then score the round into eight wedges with a sharp knife, going from the central circle out to the edge. Prick each wedge a few times with a fork. Slide the tray into the fridge for fifteen minutes while the oven heats. Cold shortbread holds its shape; warm shortbread spreads.

   The little circle in the middle isn't decorative. It's a relief vent. It stops the centre from puffing and cracking as the dough bakes.
5. 5

   Bake until pale gold

   Heat the oven to 160C/140C fan. Bake the shortbread for thirty to thirty-five minutes. You're looking for a pale, even biscuit colour, the colour of straw or sand. Not browned. Not blonde. Somewhere quietly between. Trust your nose. When the kitchen starts to smell of warm butter and toasted flour, look in. If the edges are taking on the faintest gold, it's done.

6. 6

   Cut while warm

   Take the tray out and dust the top generously with caster sugar while the shortbread is still warm. The sugar catches and clings, giving that fine crystalline crackle when you bite in. Now, while it's still warm and pliable, run a knife along the scored lines and cut all the way through into eight wedges. Leave them on the tray to cool completely. They firm up as they cool. A warm wedge will fall apart in your hand; a cool one snaps cleanly.

Chef Tips

• •The butter is the whole biscuit. Use the best you can afford, and unsalted, so you control the seasoning. A good Jersey butter or a proper farm butter will give you a shortbread that tastes of something. Cheap butter gives cheap shortbread, and there's nowhere for it to hide.
• •Rice flour is the small detail that makes the difference. It's what gives shortbread that fine, sandy, almost chalky crumb that melts rather than crunches. You'll find it in any decent supermarket near the gluten-free flours. Cornflour will stand in, but rice flour is better.
• •Don't skip the chill before baking. Cold dough holds its scored lines and bakes into neat, defined wedges. Warm dough spreads and softens and you lose the petticoat shape entirely.
• •Stored in a tin between sheets of greaseproof paper, these will keep for a good ten days. If anything, they're better on the second day, when the butter has settled and the crumb has firmed.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be made a day ahead, shaped into the round on its parchment, scored, and refrigerated overnight. Bake straight from the fridge, adding a couple of extra minutes to the cooking time.
• •Baked shortbread keeps in an airtight tin for up to ten days. Layer the wedges between greaseproof paper to stop them rubbing against each other.
• •The unbaked dough also freezes well, shaped and scored, for up to a month. Bake from frozen at the same temperature, adding five minutes or so.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 60g)