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Scottish Shortbread Recipe

Traditional Christmas Shortbread Recipes

Scottish shortbread rounds for Christmas

Enjoy trying Grandma's Scottish shortbread recipe this Christmas. Your friends and family will love homemade shortbread cookies and rounds, so be sure to make lots. Shortbread makes a wonderful Christmas gift too.

History Of Shortbread

Shortbread's history goes back to the sixteenth century and Mary, Queen of Scots. Queen Mary of Scotland enjoyed eating Petticoat Tails flavored with caraway seeds, a traditional shortbread cookie that's baked as a round shortbread and then cut into triangular shaped wedges. The wedges resemble the triangular fabric pieces used to make women's petticoats during the Elizabethan Era.

Traditional Scottish shortbreads were also made in individual round cookies known as shortbread rounds, and rectangular slabs of shortbread were cut into thin pieces known as shortbread fingers.

Shortbread was traditionally made with fresh butter and ground oatmeal, but eventually fine flours were used. Small comfit candies and thin slices of candied orange and lemon peel were added when it was served at Christmas and New Year feasts. A sprinkle of caraway seeds was customary.

Since its recipe ingredients were expensive for all but the rich, shortbread was a luxurious treat served at Christmas, New Year's Eve, Scottish Hogmanay, and on special family occasions like weddings and birthdays. Its name came into being because Scottish bakers classed shortbreads as "bread" to avoid paying the tax placed on cookies.

Scottish Shortbread Recipes

The following easy Christmas shortbread recipes are taken from handwritten family recipe books, circa 1920.

Recipe For Christmas Shortbread
3 cups flour
1 cup icing sugar
1 cup butter

Cream shortening until soft, then work in sugar. Tip sugar mixture onto flour and work in well. Press mixture into a greased pan and bake 30 minutes in a moderate oven. Cut into squares and let cool on rack.

Aunt Grace's Scottish Shortbread
1 pound butter
1 pound shortening
3 cups brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
9 cups bread flour

Cream butter, add sugar gradually, and cream mixture well. Mix baking soda with flour and saving 1-1/2 cups flour for board and knead as usual. Shape dough, prick with fork, and bake in 250°F to 300°F oven (prefer 250°F) for about 30 minutes or less until done. Ingredients may be halved for a smaller recipe.

Easy Scottish Shortbread
One pound butter and one cup brown sugar beaten to a cream, then add five and a half cups of flour, using the other half cup on board while kneading, which must be very thorough. Roll out half-inch thick, prick with a fork, cut in small squares, and bake in a slow oven. --Mrs. S. Trotter

Scottish Shortbread Recipe

This is a fine example of a traditional recipe for shortbread featuring diced bits of candied citron, orange peel and caraway seeds. Shortbread such as this is often served at Christmas and New Year celebrations or on other festive occasions.

This old fashioned recipe is taken from the book "Mrs. Goodfellow's Cookery As It Should Be" by Mrs. Elizabeth Goodfellow, published by T. B. Peterson & Brothers, Philadelphia, in 1865.

Mix two pounds of flour, dried and well sifted, with a pound of powdered sugar, three ounces of candied citron and orange peel cut into dice, and half a pound of caraway comfits; mix these with half a pound of butter melted in a saucepan; then make the paste, roll it out the thickness of half an inch, cut it into cakes, place them on white paper, prick, and bake them of a pale color.

Enjoy making delicious Christmas shortbreads with an authentic Scottish shortbread recipe. Homemade shortbread makes a wonderful treat for any occasion, not just for Christmas time.

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