Recently someone asked Granny, “what’s your favourite thing to bake?” and without hesitation, she answered with “Shortbread!” I’ve already shared Granny’s infamous Shortbread recipe but inspired by recent events, I thought it was now time to share another variation of the classic Scottish Shortbread – which incidentally is my favourite kind – Highlander Shortbread!
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If you follow Baking with Granny on social media (Facebook, Twitter & Instagram) you might have seen our recent excitement of being invited to London to take part in the first of the new series of Bake Off: An Extra Slice. As it was following on from the first of this years The Great British Bake Off, and a change to the usual schedule with them debuting with biscuit week, we were asked to bring a biscuit themed bake along with us.
After a bit of thought we decided on some regional biscuits and baked a selection of shortbread to take on our adventure. We travelled down on the train from Edinburgh to London on the Saturday morning, with the shortbread safely tucked under Granny’s seat. After arriving in London around midday we headed to the Television Centre to drop off our bake, before grabbing some lunch and returning to start filming at 3.30pm.
The afternoon/evening involved a lot of waiting but was overall a fantastic experience, with us even getting to see the new episode of The Great British Bake Off days before it debuted on TV. And we even made the final edit and can be seen talking about your selection of regional biscuits. You can see it on All4 – I should mention that we were asked before if I minded going along with the joke and of course agreed!
Out of the shortbread we took along it included my favourite kind – Highlander Shortbread. The biscuit itself is made to the same recipe as Granny’s Shortbread but the technique and the addition of a demerara sugar coating adds a little something extra to these perfect buttery biscuits.
They are best enjoyed with a cup of tea (or a dram of whiskey should you prefer!) and also make a great gift too. Always a definite showstopper if you ask me!
- 75g Caster Sugar
- 150g Salted Butter (at room temperature)
- 200g Plain Flour
- 25g Corn Flour
- 100g Demerara Sugar
- Preheat your oven to 180°c (160°c for fan assisted oven) or Gas Mark 3 and grease a couple of baking trays with a little butter.
- In a large bowl, cream together the butter and caster sugar until it becomes light and fluffy.
- Sift in the flour and cornflour and mix to form a stiff dough, using your hands if necessary. Tip the dough onto a lightly floured worktop and gently knead until smooth.
- Roll your dough into a ball before forming it into a long sausage (about 5cm in diameter). Wrap the sausage-shaped dough in some cling film and transfer to the fridge. Leave for about 30 minutes to stiffen slightly.
- Place the demerara sugar into a spare baking tray, before removing the dough from the fridge and roll the sausage-shaped dough through the sugar, ensuring it's completely coated.
- Cut the sugar-coated dough into circles around 1cm thick and transfer to your pre-greased baking trays. You should get about 18 biscuits.
- Bake in your pre-heated oven for around 10-15 minutes until the tops are lightly golden.
- Remove from the oven and leave the biscuits to cool on their tray for around 10 minutes, before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Granny likes to add a little cinnamon to her demerara sugar.
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Hello amy.ima Scot for Glasgow living in the USA I was so happy to find you and your Granny’s recipes.keep them coming.thnank you.
this is such an amazing website its the so enticing to see this delicious cakes .Keep up ….
Just made these with my 3 year old son and they were a real hit in our house! We didn’t put the dough in the fridge as my son didn’t have the patience for that but they still turned out delicious!
Oh it’s the highland shortbread I’m talking about btw!