11 hours Ago By Angela Patrone
Mary Berry has released a range of tasty recipes over the years, with some harder to make than others. If you’re looking for something very simple that will satisfy your sweet cravings, her shortbread recipe is a must. While traditional shortbread recipes only call for butter, flour and sugar, Mary likes to add a fourth ingredient to the mix - semolina.
Mary said: “I like to use semolina as well as flour to give the shortbread crunch, but you can use cornflour or ground rice instead.” I found that the semolina gave the shortbread a sweet, slightly nutty flavour and extra crunch. She also pointed out that it’s “essential” to use butter instead of a baking spread in this recipe to get the best texture.
225g plain flour 100g semolina 225g butter 100g caster sugar 25g demerara sugar, for dusting I started by greasing and lining a 30cm by 23cm baking tray. If you would like thick pieces of shortbread, I’d recommend opting for a slightly smaller tin. For the shortbread dough, I mixed together the flour and semolina in a bowl with a spoon before adding in the sugar and butter.
Using my fingertips, I rubbed the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembled breadcrumbs and began to bind together. I then added it to the prepared baking tray, making sure to level it out flat with the back of a spoon. Using a fork, I made holes in the dough, which is known as docking.
This helps prevent the dough from rising unevenly or puffing up during baking, ensuring a more even and consistent texture. The holes also allow moisture and steam to escape, adding to the shortbread's desired crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth texture. I then popped the shortbread in the fridge to chill for several minutes.
Leaving the shortbread dough to chill firms and solidifies the butter. This is important because the butter needs to slowly melt while in the oven, which will make the shortbread light and crispy. What's more, it helps concentrate those flavours for your best-ever shortbread.
During this time, I preheated my fan oven to 140 degrees. I baked the shortbread for about 35 minutes, after which it turned a very pale golden brown shade and finished it off by sprinkling with demerara sugar. I left it to cool in the tin for a few minutes before cutting it into slices and transferring it to a rack to fully cool.
Make sure to store them in a sealed container when fully cool so they don’t go stale..
