Nana Peach’s Shortbread

I was playing a silly game on Facebook and set a challenge with a box of biscuits as the prize – my sister won and despite calling me weird for liking Laurie Anderson’s O Superman, I have honoured the prize and made her a batch of the biscuit of her choice.  I have been promising to write up the recipe for Nana Peach’s Shortbread for some years (think it was when I did these fairy cakes) – they are really smooth, crumbly and creamy and just the best shortbread going.

The secret is in the flour mix – she used corn flour and plain flour which gives a really silky texture and that combined with icing sugar makes a super simple but delicious treat.

Oh and pop a couple of sugar cubes in the biscuit tin – Nana always did – I presume they absorb moisture and keep your biscuits crisp and fresh.

I didn’t have icing sugar for these so ground up granulated in the food processor until it was a fine powder – it seemed to work as well as commercially ground icing sugar.

Ingredients

225g butter (must be room temperature)

85g icing sugar

250g plain flour

85g corn flour

Method

  • Line a square baking tin with parchment (I use parchment backed foil) and preheat the oven to 160C
  • Using a hand held mixer cream the butter and icing sugar together in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy
  • Sift in both flours and continue to whisk until everything is thoroughly combined
  • You probably won’t have a dough as such – just a clumpy crumb mixture
  • Tip the crumb mixture into the baking tin and spread out evenly then press down firmly to form a smooth dough
  • Bake for 45 minutes when the biscuit will just be starting to turn a light gold
  • Put onto a cooling rack, still in the tin and with a sharp knife score into squares – it’s important to do this as soon as it comes out of the oven or  you won’t get clean lines once it has cooled
  • Sprinkle with a little more icing sugar and leave to cool in the tin.

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