HOT CROSS FRESHERS' FAIR SHORTBREAD RECIPES: the sweet ones!

People stopping by our stall at St. Cross and Wolfson Freshers' Fairs were able to sample 5 different varieties of shortbread that we came up with for the occasion: 3 sweet, (Chocolate Chip & Cocoa Nib, Stem Ginger, and Saffron & White Honey), and 2 savoury (Garam Masala and Zaatar) adapting a basic shortbread recipe from a book called Culinary Tea by Gold & Stern, to exciting result.

Here's the basic recipe:

1lb/455g unsalted butter, chilled
1 cup/200g golden caster sugar (for savoury flavoured shortbread, reduce this by half)
4 cups/500g plain flour
1/2 tsp fine sea salt

Basic Method:

In a large bowl, use an electric mixer on medium speed to cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Add any liquid or paste flavourings you are using (e.g. vanilla, marmalade). Mix until incorporated. Then add flour, salt and any dry flavourings/chunks (nuts, tea, chocolate chips). Mix until the dough just pulls together.

Divide dough in two and flatten into two rectangles. Place each between two sheets of wax paper/baking parchment and roll out to 1/4 inch thickness. Transfer to the fridge carefully to chill. The original recipe says that you can chill for as little as 20 minutes, but we have found that to make the dough manageable, and crucially to allow the flavours to infuse through the dough, it is better to leave it over night if possible. I think minimum would probably be an hour if you were in a real hurry.

You can chill the dough for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 1 month at this point.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 150degrees C. Cut the cookies out and place on baking sheets lined with parchment or sprayed with cooking spray. Cook for about 30 minutes until the cookies appear sandy and dry, and have a slight golden colour. Cool on a rack and store in an airtight container at room temperature.

FOR SAFFRON, WHITE HONEY & Rose Water:
Soak 1 tsp of saffron for at least 1/2 hour in 1/3 cup of warm water. Add 4 tbsps of this one at a time, blending well after each addition, to the creamed butter and sugar, along with 2 tbsps of rose water, the seeds of 1/2 a vanilla pod scraped out, and 3 tbsps of white, set honey. Your butter mix will be looser than it otherwise would be with all this liquid, so you may have to add a little bit more flour.

FOR STEM GINGER (and Cointreau):
We added both raw and candied ginger to our ginger shortbread to give a fresh heat and bite. In this recipe I'm also suggesting you add some powdered dried ginger too; all three preparations emphasise a different aspect of ginger's flavour, and by combining them you get more depth of flavour. Add to your creamed butter and sugar 1/4 cup of peeled and grated fresh ginger, and 2 tbsp of Cointreau (or more...to taste!), then add 1 tbsp of dried ginger with the flour, and finally at least 100 g of chopped candied ginger. Mix well.

FOR CHOCOLATE CHIP & COCOA NIB

Add the seeds of 1 vanilla pod to the creamed butter and sugar. Add 2 tbsps of cocoa or, better yet, grate in about a 1 and 1/2 inch piece of pure cacao stick, available from Rabot Estate. Then add in 2/3 cup of milk chocolate chips or bits and the same again of cocoa nibs, the ends of the raw cocoa bean which can be bought in health food shops like Holland & Barrett or online. 

Shortbread is easy and delicious, and as you can see, it is versatile: Not only can it, like other rolled cookies, be cut into all manner of shapes, but it can take a wide variety of flavours too, and its melt-in-the-mouth "short" quality, makes it great for savoury varieties, as we found out.