A rolling pin for my birthday?
When I have the sudden need to do some baking at 9pm on a Thursday night, there is one book I turn to. The Edmonds Cookbook is a New Zealand institution, I still have my Junior Edmonds Cookbook that I started to learn to bake from. It also has the added bonus of having heaps of really simple recipes which I can make on a whim without going shopping.
This is how I came to be making shortbread last week, and it certainly did the trick. I have made shortbread a few times before, and it has always come out as a sort of pathetic sugar biscuit, but no more, these biscuits are buttery goodness.
It’s a dough made of butter, sugar, cornflour and regular flour, which requires a bit of work to come together from crumbs. At this point I realised that I don’t own a rolling pin (I cannot call myself a baker I know!) which presented another challenge – but nothing a wine bottle cannot fix.
The recipe makes heaps of dough, you can freeze half wrapped up in gladwrap if you do not have a crowd on standby to gobble them down. With a ball of this in the freezer I will not have an excuse to give someone store bought shortbread passed off as homemade anymore !
Shortbread
From The Edmonds Cookery Book – 100 year edition
Makes 30-35 biscuits
250g butter (softened)
1 cup icing sugar
1 cup cornflour
2 cups white flour
Cream butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy
Sift cornflour and flour together, mix into creamed butter and sugar
Knead dough on a floured surface (I did this a handful at a time)
Roll out dough to 0.5cm thickness on a lightly floured surface
Cut into pieces with a knife or a cookie cutter
Prick with a fork
Bake at 150 degrees C for 25-30 minutes, or until pale gold in colour
