Scottish Shortbread

[Music] welcome to mr. Paul's pantry hi mr. Paul and I hope you enjoy my recipe today now this is something I've had lots and lots of requests to make and it was so simple I just kept putting it off because I thought everybody knew how to do it but it's a recipe that's set to result and loved by most of the population it's actually Scottish shortbread and with Christmas looming I should be making lots of it in the next few days because my boxes they're very nice fancy boxes and give it to quite a lot of my friends and customers so I'll show you how to do it it's three ingredients plus a pinch of salt and that's it let's do it so here we are these are the ingredients it's 375 grams of plain flour you might know it as all-purpose flour it's 250 grams of butter it's a hundred and twenty-five grams of caster sugar or you can use icing sugar if you wish I prefer to use castor sugar it gives a nice bit of crunch when it's cooked and a pinch of salt that's it nothing else so let's get cracking so here we go we've got the 375 grams of flour the plain flour and we've got the 250 grams of butter now I must stress this must be at room temperature if it's too hard it's very very hard work it needs to be at room temperature and this is how soft mine is if you can see it's been sitting out now for several hours in the kitchen and it's quite warm in my kitchen today [Music] in there and the sugar and one pinch of salt that's all no more what we need to do now is we need to blend all this together now you can use a mixer for this if you want it does take quite a while with your hands but I find using a mixer it makes it - I don't know what I can explain it as it makes it very pasty and I don't I can't explain it but I prefer to use my hand for it I know commercial producers of of really good shortbreads up in Scotland they have special machines made they don't just use ordinary pastry type mixing machines they have a special machine that mixes I think they're a little bit like commercial bread dough mixers but they're very they're gentle but firm if you understand what I mean so this is going to take quite a while and you need to keep kneading this together until it comes into a nice smooth paste and this should take you about five minutes so here we are now I had actually time this while I was mixing it and it was four and a half minutes I turned the camera off because I didn't want you to sit watching me I'm sure you didn't want to watch it me needing it for four minutes yeah when I watched a video the other night and it was a thirty minute video and in the comments underneath afterwards there was dozens of them saying can't believe this a thirty minute video to prepare a ten minute meal I'll simply to talk about for half an hour now that's the paste we finished up with okay it's a bit like pastry it's soft its pliable it's nice and sure bread can come in a very a variety of shape and sizes sometimes it's made in a tin like this in a round and divided into quarters they're called petticoat tails or you may have a tin similar to this I don't use that mitt that comes out fill that has a loose bottom you fill that with your paste mark it in two fingers brick with a fork and cook then you could lift it out easily with the loose bottom like that also you can buy these which are very very similar but they have a fluted side already built in and do exactly the same fill the paste level it off and mark it in two fingers and then weights cooked they just break off into individual biscuits or you can roll out your paste and cut them into fingers instead of putting in this dish and put them individually on a tin like this I'm going to do these two today to show you how it works so here we are thank you get some of reason the of them now first of all I'm going to make the petticoat tails this is made in a any shallow tin or dish or flan tin anything at all I've just put a bit of parchment in the bottom just in case anything stinks now there's no need to roll this with a rolling pin actually it can go straight into the into the into the tin and we just push it out with our fingers to fit now you can make these as thick or as thin as you wish I don't like them too thin because first of all they catch very easily in the oven when they're baking if they're very thin and secondly they tend to be a bit dry when you're eating them I like to make make it like that then take something just to divide it into four like that and then we're going to use the fork and we're going to just one make little holes along it like that this is a traditional decoration for Scottish shortbread but it also serves a purpose it allows moisture to escape from the pastry joepace during cooking and that perhaps to crisp it up a lot quicker you see that okay now we're going to make some petticoat or some fingers need to roll this with a rolling pin at this stage now what we don't need to do we don't need to add any flour that's most important because if we start adding flour you will upset the recipe and that won't do so I'm using a nonstick mat but if you have a marble top or something like that my work surfaces are stainless steel and they're not as non-stick as a marble top so we could roll it like that about half an inch thick doesn't need to be too thin and then we're going to cut some fingers now I like to cut them just I cut them free and they don't bother cutting them very very neat in the shop we always have what's called a share and cutter which is like a lazy Tong thing with wheels on and you can make it in wider and and then you just run it down and all these wheels just cut a little but I don't use that at home I just use this method so there we are and those are my fingers that I'm going to put on my baking sheet like this I make my little marks just the same as I did on the petticoat tails with the fork you don't need to go right through just in the top and as I said this will help crisp them up afterwards now there's lots of variations on the recipe for this purebred quite a lot of people add things like rice flour or corn flour or various other things it doesn't really need anything like that just the three ingredients that I've shown you and that is utter sugar and flour I'll make a few more just to fill that tray up with and then we'll pop them in the oven now they need to go in the oven at 160 centigrade I will put the conversions underneath the video in what's called the information box we I don't know what they call it he doesn't actually say what he's called underneath but underneath the video if you just scroll down you will see some information and if you don't see what I'm talking about it'll say but see more just click on that and it'll take you to a little bit more it gives the links to my website and to the recipe and everything else and the ingredients so we're going to take that like that you can leave them as long or as short as you want make them as big as you want doesn't make any difference if I'm doing these for a party I just do a little small square and then it looks like this piles of them on the plate they just help themselves there we are I mean if you want to be neater than I mean when we have the shops everyone ought to be the same size of course so we used as I said this Sharon cutter but with this I just make them any size doesn't matter sorry that's supposed to be a nonstick mat there but it's not wood right so there we are they're going to go in the oven as I said and they'll be in the oven at 160 for about 20 to 25 minutes now if you do see them getting too brown take them out because they should only be covering just slightly around the edges and that's when they done don't lift them out and have a feel don't or you'll be fooled they'll still be very very soft like they're not cooked at all you need to take them out and let them cool and then they Harden so you take them out and put them onto a wire rack I'll see you in 25 minutes this by the way is the sharon cutter we used to use when we have the shops it's a make it it's a little cutting wheels on here you can see them and you can make it as wide or as narrow as you want so once you get your thickness you want for york shortbreads tighten it up and it's as simple as that you just run it along your pastry and if you've got long bits of pastry on a big table it's very very easy and it just cuts you everyone the same size like that I thought you just like to know that and there we have the finished product Letty cocktails and shortbread fingers now the taste test hmm just as I thought absolutely beautiful nice and buttery nice and crisp and what I forgot to tell you is when I lifted them out of the oven whilst they're still hot I just put a sugar shaker and put sprinkle some castor sugar on top of them so just a little bit that's all and while it's hot it makes it stick on top and they're absolutely delightful I hope you've enjoyed the video if you have give it a like of them underneath the video a thumbs up and leave a comment if you want and also if you have any ideas or recipes you want we just show you how to do in future leave those in the comment section as well and thank you for watching and I'll see you next time bye [Music]

Channel: Mr. Paul's Pantry

Views: 864,262

Rating: 4.9049678 out of 5

Keywords: shortbread, scottish shortbread, mr paul's panytry, mister pauls pantry, baking

Id: UXM7BkAHuss

Length: 13min 40sec (820 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 29 2019