Shortbread - what's the SECRET ingredient? (And where did it come from?)

ah shortbread it's hard to look at any kind of Scottish imagery without finding at least one tin with Bonnie Prince Charlie peeking out at the front of it even on my own merch but what is it where did it come from and more importantly how do you make it or more importantly for me how does my mom make it I've been working on a video about Glen Cole there are drone shorts and sweeping shorts and whiskey colored sunset some tragedy but sometimes you need a bit of a break from all that sometimes you just want to think about biscuits or cookies depending on where you are in relation to the Atlantic there are only three ingredients butter castor sugar and plain flour or if you're my great granny corn flour still pretty simple luckily first things first we need to get this thing heated up up to about that's the top oven that would be a feel we need to get this thing heated up to about 160° Centigrade or 320° F if you're that way inclined it's thought to have originated in Scotland in the 12th century although if it's anything like the Kilt video I did I'm pretty sure someone will tell me the Egyptians invented it it probably came from medieval biscuit bread leftover D from bread making was dried out in a low oven to make a kind of Rusk we need 250 g or a block of butter then we have to soften that up a bit adding an 125 G of castor sugar shortbread may have had some outside French interference firstly through the old Alliance that dates back to the wars of Independence and later due to Mary Queen of Scots who was half French and married to a Frenchman and probably had the odd pastry chef on her payroll I mean you would popular history has it that Mary refin shortbread but there's no real evidence for that so that should be nicely creamed to be honest it's a bit of a work out but here's where things get weird remember this is my great grandmother's recipe and if I don't get it right she might come back and haunt me so we need 250 g of flour then we need 125 G of corn flour what's 250 + 125 so now I'm going to have to get in there with my hands you can use a mixer or you can stick on a board and and kind of bring it together with your hands that way I'm just going to do it in the bowl probably cuz it saves on the wash up quite literally ready to roll oh little bit of flour on the work toop you want to roll this to about half an inch thick obviously there's different ways you can do this you can make rounds or you can cut it into fingers and if you're doing that you want to make it a little bit thicker or if you want to be really manly pacat Tails this is a traditional shortbread mold and it's thought this could be kind of a French influence the name petot Tales could be a corruption at the French pet gatel or Little Cakes but no one knows for sure and the shape could date back even further I'm talking like I'm some kind of an expert that hasn't just been told how to make shortbread by his mom at the age of 45 so last thing we do is pop some Fork holes in it and that's basically just to let the moisture out pop this on the middle shelf for 14 minutes and then it's a waiting game looks like we're done hopefully it's turned out okay now all we have to do is wait for them to cool down put some sugar on it and then wait for them to cool down if you succeed in doing this tell me how I'm hoping this is going to be okay but like um most of what I do it could go either way the name shortbread has less to do with height and more to do with consistency it's an old-fashioned use of the word short referring in this case to crumbly texture that should melt in the [Music] mouth you can find the recipe in the description

Channel: Scotland Unplugged

Views: 4,441

Keywords: Scotland, History, Scotland history tours, Broonfords, scottish history, history, things to do in Scotland, Scottish travel, Hoof GP’s Brother, Hoof GP, Edinburgh, historic landmarks, Andy the Highlander, Scotland Uncovered, quick Scottish history, scottish cooking, scottish baking, shortbread, short cake, Mary queen of Scots, bonnie prince charlie, scottish food, how to make shortbread, food history, all butter shortbread, holiday treats, christmas treats, new year, Hogmanay

Id: 2yHDhceehhs

Length: 5min 14sec (314 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 12 2023