Recipe: Shortbread Star Biscuits

Today Popette and I did a little baking and made some yummy shortbread star biscuits.

My little assistant helped place the ingredients in to the bowl, and cut out the shapes. She had a great time and can't wait to try one this afternoon.

The recipe is very simple and one I often use when making shortbread for Christmas. I use soft spread butter with Olive Oil, as it makes the biscuit dough nice & crumbly which once baked are really short.

This recipe will make approximately 15 biscuits, if you want to make more just double the quantity, except vanilla essence. The biscuits keep well in an airtight container.



"Popette" cutting out some stars

Sprinkled with some pink coloured sugar

Our finished biscuits (don't look too closely at the burnt ones!)



Recipe: Shortbread star biscuits

Ingredients:
150g plain flour
150g butter, softened
75g cornflour
75g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence

Method:
Preheat oven to 170^o C.

Place softened butter and dry ingredients into a bowl and mix until ingredients are combined together.

I firstly soften the butter in the microwave for a few seconds so it is easier to combine with the other ingredients.

I make my dough by hand as I don't have a food processor, so it does take a while to blend. If you have a food processor, place all the ingredients into the processor and blend until the mixture holds together.

If you are making the dough by hand, combine ingredients with a wooden spoon or with your hand until the dough is quite smooth and you no longer see any crumbs.

On a floured benchtop, roll out half of the dough to approximately 1cm thick. If you roll them out too thin they will burn. Using a star cookie cutter, cut dough into as many stars as possible.

Place biscuits 1/2 cm apart on a baking tray, then prick with a fork.

Finally, sprinkle with a little caster sugar, or a coloured sugar like the one we used, before placing in the oven.

Bake shortbread for approximately 20 minutes or until very pale. I have had to adjust the cooking time, as I usually make a larger batch, which take approximately 40-45 minutes, and we had a few that were a little burned.

Cooking time will vary on the thickness you have made the biscuits.

Lastly enjoy! :)