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Classic Scottish Shortbread
Because of its climate, Scotland's national grain has traditionally been the oat. This shortbread recipe is a toast to this tradition, using ground oats in addition to the standard all-purpose flour to create thick slabs of shortbread with crumbly/crunchy texture and delightfully nutty/buttery flavor.
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
- generous 1/2 teaspoon salt*
- 1 cup oats, traditional or quick
- 1 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- *If you use salted butter, reduce the salt to 1/4 teaspoon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease an 8" round cake pan.
- The easiest way to make the dough is in a food processor. Place all of the ingredients into the work bowl, and process to make a smooth, sticky dough.
- If you don't have a food processor, grind the oats in a blender before using. If you don't have a blender or food processor, use quick oats, rather than traditional. Combine the oats with the remaining ingredients, and mix until smooth.
- Press the dough into the prepared pan, and score it into 16 wedges. A knife or baker's bench knife, dipped in water between cuts, is the tool to use here.
- Bake the shortbread for 35 to 40 minutes, until it's firm and golden brown. Remove it from the oven, and after 5 minutes turn it out of the pan onto a piece of parchment, or a clean work surface. Cut all the way through the score marks to make wedges. Place them on a rack to cool completely.
- Yield: 16 shortbread wedges.
Tips from our bakers
- For more traditional shortbread, reduce the sugar to 1/2 cup. The Scots generally prefer their shortbread less sweet.
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Reviews
Great recipe. Worked perfectly first time, using food processor. Yummy
Just tried this recipe for the first time. It's cooled for 5 min. and been cut but hasn't cooled enough to try. It smells WONDERFUL!!! Trying to keep my husband from taking one till they cool. It's a challenge. Would appreciate tips for storage, air tight container or loosely covered? Judging by the smell, storage may not be a problem.We're guessing your shortbread has probably disappeared by now, but any leftovers should be kept in an airtight container for 3-4 days. Happy baking! Kye@KAF
I love shortbread and have baked a number of recipes. This has become my absolute favorite. Everyone who has tried it raves about the texture and taste. It is also the easiest because everything is mixed in a food processor and it does not require refrigeration or rolling out. Use a high quality butter or splurge on European style butter which has a higher butterfat content (kerrygold, Plugra and Lurpak come to mind) because that is the predominant flavor. I do run the oatmeal in the processor for a few minutes first to get a finer milled oat flour. I have also baked the dough in a square pan. In addition to scoring the dough, I dock it with a fork to minimize puffing up during baking. The raw dough freezes well and just needs to be thawed before baking.
Without a doubt. This recipe makes the best Scottish Shortbread that I have ever had. The oat flour and the toasted butter flavor make these totally addictive! The initial taste is mild as other shortbread cookies are, but the flavor develops into an explosion of delicious browned butter flavor!
This recipe turned out great - I really like the taste of the oats and they are just the right amount of sweetness. The only change I made was to add some lemon zest and I pressed it into an 8X8 square pan so I ended up with fingers. Next time I'll grind up the oats in the food processor first, then add the other ingredients because there were some larger pieces of oats left. I've tried many many recipes for shortbread over the years and think this is the one I'll stick with in the future.
I love the texture and flavor. Blended the oats before mixing in food processor.
Made this with my son who loves shortbread. But when taking it out of the pan it totally fell apart into a dry and crumbly mess. Wish I knew what I did wrong. I followed the recipe exactly. Perhaps I didn't mix it enough? Or maybe cooked it too long? (37 minutes) Any advise would be appreciated. Thanks.
We're happy to help you transform your shortbread to a delicious, buttery cookie instead of a crumbly mess. The key is using just the right amount of flour. We recommend using a scale to measure by weight, but you can also lightly fluff and sprinkle the flour into your measuring cup before leveling it off with a knife if you don't have a scale. The dough should be slightly sticky--if it's not, you can add a few teaspoons of water until it comes together. Lining the pan with a piece of parchment can also help with easy removal. Let the shortbread cool in the pan for at least 5 minutes before moving to a cooling rack. Also, note that shortbread is a crumbly baked good, so a little bit of this texture is normal. Just be sure to eat all the crumbs... they're delicious! Happy baking! Kye@KAF
What a fabulous recipe! I increase the oatmeal and decrease the flour so that the flavor is even more influenced by oatmeal. I bake them in springform pans which makes it very easy to remove the shortbread from the pans and decorate them. A plus is that they are not time consuming; you can impress even the most particular dinner guests at the last minute!!
I used 1/3 cup unrefined (not powdered) sugar, added some grated lemon rind and baked in a 9x12 pan. Hard to stop eating these!!
These are delicious and easy, but several of mine crumbled in removing them from the cake pan. Next time I'll use a square pan, a springform pan or bake them on a sheet pan. I found 12 to be a more reasonable serving size than 16, as the smaller ones didn't hold together well at all. The oats add a nice flavor and texture.
