Stack of shortbread cookies beside a tea cup
Biscuits/cookies

Traditional All-Butter Shortbread

It’s a ‘back to basics’ kind of recipe this week with this Traditional All-Butter Shortbread. I realized that I had Brown Sugar Shortbread and Almond Shortbread recipes on the blog, but nothing for a simple, traditional shortbread.

And this recipe couldn’t be easier. Just a few ingredients, mixed together easily and rolled out and cut into whatever size cookies you prefer. I used a 58mm cookie cutter and rolled my dough to about 1cm thickness, which gave me 26 shortbread cookies. Obviously if your dough is thicker/thinner or the cookies larger/smaller, then keep an eye on it as it may well bake more slowly or quickly than mine did.

Now, this is a Traditional All-Butter Shortbread, so butter is one of the key ingredients. I don’t always pay too much attention to the type of butter I use in recipes, especially if there are a lot of other flavors and ingredients involved. But for something like this, you want to use the good stuff. So I used Kerrygold unsalted butter, which I also find to be a little softer straight out of the fridge than other butters, so as a bonus, it doesn’t take as long to get it softened before you cream the butter and sugar.

The dough is quite soft, but it rolls out easily. Just be sure to sprinkle a little flour on your work surface. It can also help if you divide the ball of dough into two pieces, so you’re not working with as much of the dough at once.

Traditional All-Butter Shortbread

A traditional, all-butter Shortbread. Just a few ingredients and a simple method needed to make these crisp, buttery, shortbread cookies.
5 from 1 vote
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Course Dessert, Snack
Servings 26 cookies

Ingredients
  

  • 8 oz or 225g butter
  • 4 oz or 110g caster sugar (superfine sugar)
  • 8 oz or 225g plain flour (all-purpose flour)
  • 4 oz or 110g cornflour (corn starch)
  • pinch of salt

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 325F/165C.
  • Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
  • Sieve the flour, cornflour and salt and mix into the creamed butter and sugar until well incorporated.
  • Roll out and cut into rounds. I used a 58mm/2¼inch cookie cutter and got 26 cookies from the mix.
  • Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until pale golden.
  • Remove to a wire rack to cool and dust with sugar while still warm.
Keyword easy, shortbread

4 Comments

  • Alayne

    5 stars
    Gorgeous recipe! I read what you said elsewhere about custard powder being cornflour with vanilla etc added, so I used custard flour instead. Yum, the resulting biscuits tasted like the Danish Butter Cookies that used to arrive in the shops in the lead up to Christmas. Feeling very nostalgic.