Weil’s Scottish Shortbread
Liz and I attended the McMaster Alumni event, Baking for the Holidays: Sweets & Treats for Giving. It was held in the Great Hall of the (former) Faculty Club. Weil’s of Westdale had 3 of their pastry chefs doing demos of:
- Shortbread
- Checkerboard (icebox) cookies
- Christmas Pudding (a la Julia Child) with Hard Sauce (that was ironically light and fluffy)
- Gingerbread and Royal Icicng for making decorations and houses
- Brandy Snaps
- Chocolate Yule Log (aka iced sponge cake)
- and Hot Chocolate Mix
The package ended with an excerpt from the cake bible to convert weights to volumes, but they highly recommend getting a scale (which I don’t own). This is their recipe for shortbread; the one they sell in the store:
- 10 oz sugar (1.42 cups)
- 8 grams salt (.83 tsp)
- 1 egg
Cream together but don’t over mix. The egg makes it softer. Add:
- 1lb 4oz butter (2.5 cups)
- 1lb 10oz pastry flour (5.8 cups)
Lightly mix to form a dough (it will be stiff). Line a jelly roll pan with parchment paper. Pack down the dough and roll down the the top to make it smooth. Poke with a fork to form the traditional design and bake at 350F until golden brown (they didn’t comment on the time but said to watch it and try for 20 min). Cut while warm with a chefs knife into the desired shape (squares or fingers).
Options:
- Half way through baking, dust lightly with sugar
- Substitute 3oz of cocoa for 3oz of flour
- Add toffee (1/2 bag skor bits) and pecans or white chocolate and cranberry
- Add chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruit, etc
