How to make the best shortbread biscuits, with a little help from David Tanis, Alison Roman and more

Shortbread is a classic Scottish biscuit, thought to date back to the 12th century, but made popular by Mary, Queen of Scots, in the 16th century. Shortbread is short due to the high proportion of butter or fat in the dough, making the biscuits tender and crumbly rather than crisp and chewy.

Here, I have tested six shortbread recipes (by David Tanis, Alison Roman, Benjamina Ebuehi, Melissa Clark and Claire Saffitz) – and I have also included Thalia Ho’s sablé biscuit as a point of reference. Sablés are often referred to as French shortbread, and they entail a very similar mixing method and list of ingredients.

Mixing method

I had always thought that shortbread should be made by rubbing butter into flour with your fingertips (or in a food processor). The majority of these recipes, however, (Tanis, Roman, Ho, Ebuehi and Saffitz) use the creaming method whereby butter and sugar are creamed together, before the dry ingredients are added. Melissa Clark is the only exception: her method involves melting the butter and using this to bring together the dry ingredients. In hindsight, the creaming method makes a lot of sense, as you can incorporate a lot of air into the butter and sugar, and then fold in the dry ingredients at the end, meaning that you don’t overwork the gluten, which could result in a tough, chewy dough.

Ingredients

The main flavour in shortbread is butter and it is used here in amounts varying from 77 per cent (Tanis) to 100 per cent (Saffitz) of total flour. It is no coincidence that the two tastiest shortbreads (Ho and Saffitz) had the highest proportion of butter. More butter also increases the fat content, which makes the biscuits lovely and tender. Salt is arguably the next most important ingredient, and all recipes included salt either in the dough, or in the form of salted butter. I like both, and also back the addition of flaky sea salt (such as Maldon) on top of the biscuits before baking.

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Plain flour is most commonly used, with a few additions: Clark adds rice flour which seems to be quite traditional. I didn’t love the flavour, but it did contribute to a lovely short texture. Ebuehi uses ground almonds in her shortbread too, which adds a lovely flavour and texture, though perhaps makes them a little dense for my liking. Saffitz uses some cornflour (or cornstarch) in her recipe, which I liked. Her shortbread biscuits turned out light and fine-textured. Two of the recipes (Ho and Saffitz) used an egg yolk to help bring the dough together, and I really liked this. The extra fat makes the dough quite soft, but the texture of the baked shortbread was lovely and tender, without being too brittle.

Flavouring

I love Roman’s chocolate chunk shortbread, though it might stray a little far away from a traditional shortbread recipe for some people. Tanis’s recipe was delicious too, with toasted pecans and cardamom. Saffitz uses brown butter in her recipe, which I support wholeheartedly, but is perhaps a step too far for a simple shortbread recipe – and she also rolls the shortbread in a delicious sage sugar before baking. The other recipes mainly used vanilla as flavouring (if any), depending on the butter and salt for flavour.

Baking

Three of the recipes I tested (Tanis, Clark and Ebuehi) instruct that the dough be pressed into the tin, and the shortbread is then sliced after it is baked. Ebuehi also uses a fork to make the distinctive marks on top that I associate with Scottish shortbread. The rest of the recipes (Saffitz, Ho and Roman) roll the dough up into a sausage shape and chill it, before slicing and baking in rounds. I quite like the round biscuits, and this way it is easy to save remaining dough in the fridge or freezer, ready to be baked later. If rolling into a log, I recommend rolling in sugar (it helps to brush with a little egg white first) before slicing and baking: the crust gets lovely and caramelised as the biscuits bake. If baking in a tray, I liked Clark’s recipe which instructs that you sprinkle sugar on top after the shortbread is baked. The dough often doesn’t have much sugar in it, so it’s nice to add a little extra sweetness and crunch this way.

Recipe: lemon and poppyseed shortbread biscuits

References

• David Tanis
• Melissa Clark
• Alison Roman
• Thalia Ho
• Benjamina Ebuehi
• Claire Saffitz: Dessert Person