Is Shortbread Scottish or Aussie?

Shortbread is traditionally made from one part white sugar, two parts butter, and three parts flour. Other ingredients like ground rice or cornflour are sometimes added to alter the texture.

 

Modern recipes also often deviate from the original by splitting the sugar into equal parts granulated and icing sugar and some add a portion of salt.

 Scotland 16th Century.

Although shortbread was prepared during much of the 12th century, the refinement of shortbread is credited to Mary, Queen of Scots in the 16th century. This type of shortbread was baked, cut into triangular wedges, and flavoured with caraway seeds.
 

Brittan 18th Century.

Shortbread originated in Britain, with the first printed recipe, in 1736, from a woman named Mrs McLintock.

Baking procedure

Shortbread is baked at a low temperature to avoid browning. When cooked, it is nearly white, or a light golden brown. It may be sprinkled with more sugar while cooling. It may even be crumbly before cooled, but will become firmer after cooling.

 

Shortbread is traditionally formed into one of three shapes: one large circle, which is divided into segments as soon as it is taken out of the oven, individual round biscuits or a thick 2 cm oblong slab cut into fingers.

 

The stiff dough retains its shape well during cooking. The biscuits are often patterned, usually with the tines of a fork before cooking.

 or with a Scottish biscuit mould.

An early variety of shortbread, using ginger, was reportedly eaten during sittings of the Parliament of Scotland and therefore the variety was sometimes called

"Parliament Cake" into the 19th century.

Ingredients for this "Parliament Cake"

225g plain flour
115g butter
115g brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons black treacle
2 and a half teaspoons ground ginger

Mix the flour, ginger and sugar thoroughly in a bowl.
Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the treacle and bring to the boil, stirring continuously.
Add the hot butter and treacle to the bowl holding the dry ingredients and mix a little to allow the mixture to cool, add your egg and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until you get a dough.
When it has cooled enough to handle, scoop up about a tablespoon amount and drop this onto a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper. Flatten it a bit so it looks more biscuit like.
You should get about 12-15 biscuits, depending on how big you make them, but remember they will expand a little in the oven, so leave space.

Bake at 160C for 25 minutes then leave to cool on a cooling rack. They are properly crunchy (like ginger snaps when cool).

Shortbread resulted from medieval biscuit bread, which was a twice-baked, enriched breads roll dusted with sugar and spices and hardened into a hard, dry, sweetened biscuit called a rusk. Eventually, yeast from the original rusk recipe was replaced by butter, which was becoming more of a staple in Britain and Ireland.

 

Shortbread was expensive and reserved as a luxury for special occasions such as Christmas, Hogmanay (Scottish New Year’s Eve), and weddings. In Shetland, it is traditional to break a decorated shortbread cake over the head of a new bride on the entrance of her new house.

 

 Looking at this mould, Shortbread must be Aussie!