Brown Sugar Shortbread
Buttery shortbread fingers made with light brown sugar for a caramel flavour, baked for 25 minutes at 150C.
Photograph credit: Shortbread by blandinejoannic · Pixabay Content License · Pixabay
Storing and Planning Ahead
Keeps in an airtight tin for 2 weeks.
Making Brown Sugar Shortbread
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Heat the oven to 150°C / 300°F. Line a 20 cm square tin with baking paper.
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Mix the butter, brown sugar and salt until just combined. Add the flour and cornflour and press together into a dough.
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Press the dough evenly into the tin. Prick all over with a fork.
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Bake for 25 minutes until pale gold at the edges.
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Cut into 16 fingers while warm, sprinkle with the caster sugar and cool in the tin.
Related guide: Pan and tin size.
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A Few Pointers
- Do not cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.
- Bake low and slow.
- Cut while warm.
Why the Method Is What It Is
Shortbread has three ingredients: butter, sugar and flour. The Scottish tradition is strict about that, and it works because the three, in the right proportions, produce a pale, crumbly biscuit that tastes intensely of butter. Use brown sugar in place of white, and the flavour moves towards caramel and toffee.
The golden ratio is one part sugar, two parts butter and three parts flour by weight. Beat the butter and sugar only until combined, not until pale and fluffy, because incorporating air makes the shortbread puff and then collapse. A little rice flour or cornflour in place of some of the plain flour gives a sandier, more tender bite.
Prick the dough with a fork and bake low. At 150°C / 300°F the biscuits dry out and colour slowly, so they turn golden at the edges while staying pale in the middle. A hotter oven browns the top before the centre is cooked and gives a hard, greasy biscuit.
Cut the shortbread into fingers while it is still warm, because it breaks when cold. Leave it to cool in the tin, then sprinkle with a little caster sugar. Store it in a tin and eat it with tea.
Good Alongside
Hot tea · Coffee · Fresh strawberries · Cheddar
What's in a Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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