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Such a classic recipe, we make these every now and then. So simple, normally everything that’s needed is in the pantry and doesn’t take long either. Crumbly, yet soft, these 3 ingredient shortbread biscuits are the epitome of simple home bakes.
I do love simple and easy bakes I can prepare with the children and get them involved. I have 3 ingredient cookies and vegan cheese scones recipes on the blog as well. I also love this classic hot cross buns recipe.
Traditional Scottish shortbread
Traditional Scottish shortbread is made from one part white sugar, two parts butter and three to four parts flour. That’s it, easy enough to remember. Interestingly, it developed in the medieval times by using leftover dough from bread making. It dried out in a low oven until it hardened. Hence the word biscuit, which means twice cooked. It was flavoured with caraway seeds. Later butter replaced the yeast. With the sugar and butter it became an expensive treat, reserved for special occasions.
Why is shortbread called “short”?
Rooted from the medieval times, the word “short” was used to describe crisp and crumbly things. Later, this term began to include baked goods such as bread, cakes, and biscuits that is rich in fat such as shortening or butter.
Traditional Scottish shortbread ingredients
I have mentioned the one part white sugar, two parts butter and three to four parts flour rule, but you can also use a mixture of flour made of corn, wheat or semolina. It will be a different texture of course, but you can experiment with it.
Step-by-step tutorial for making 3 ingredient shortbread biscuits
Step 1: Make the dough
Ideally, you want to sift the flour to make it lovely and crumbly. After this, add the softened butter in cubes and the sugar. Combine. At first it will look like breadcrumbs but keep working on it until it comes together. Form a little ball, cover the mixing bowl with a plate and let the dough chill in the fridge for half an hour.
Step 2: Chill the dough in the fridge
This is important. I recommend half an hour in the fridge. Chilling is needed as the soft butter makes the dough quite impossible to handle. The chilling will help it to firm out, so you can roll it out and cut it no problem.
Step 3: Cut the biscuits
I just used a small drinking glass to shape the round biscuits, but you can also make traditional, shortbread fingers with a knife or any cookie cutter shapes, like reindeer or stars if you’re baking them in the Christmas season.
Step 4: Bake
Relatively low temperature of 170 Celsius is recommended as well as 10-15 minutes baking time. You can keep checking them. Let them cool and enjoy. You can sprinkle with some extra sugar as per tradition, but we never do this. The sugar content of the biscuits are just enough of sugar!
Decorating them
Although, classic shortbread is not great for decorating and traditionally it’s not decorated – you can if you want to. We make these shortbread cookies normally for the kiddos to decorate them (they love playing around with food colouring and sugar glaze). Last time we made them for Halloween and decorated them with bloooood. They turned out quite dramatic:
3 Ingredient Shortbread Recipe
Ingredients
- 150 g plain flour sifted
- 100 g butter room temperature
- 50 g caster sugar
Instructions
- Heat the oven 170C/150C fan/gas 3. Sift the flour ideally, then add the soft butter and sugar. Combine. At first it will look like breadcrumbs but keep working on it until it comes together. Form a little ball, cover the mixing bowl with a plate and let the dough chill in the fridge for half an hour.
- After chilling - this is important because otherwise the dough will be too soft and sticky to work with - take the dough out of the fridge, sprinkle with flour and roll it out on a lightly floured surface. Aim for about half a cm thickness.Cut the biscuits with a cookie cutter. Aim to work quickly so as the dough doesn't warm up too much between rolling out again.
- Line a baking sheet and bake them for about 15 minutes.Let them cool and enjoy!
