...MMmmmmm

I love shortbread - but it has to be the real, melt-in-your-mouth-type, too-crumbly to-pick-up-nearly shortbread. The prepack stuff you get in the supermarket just doesn't do it.

Here is my all time favourite recipe. This recipe is the result of my footering in the kitchen over the years trying various recipes and tinkering about till I came up with a failsafe formula. It takes less than five mins to prepare this and not much longer to cook.

I made this so's I could whip up some christmas packaging, just to see how it worked - 30mins after the shortbread was out of the oven it was all gone. There was nothing to package - you'll have to wait 'til I make some more. In the meantime - here's my recipe. - All you ladies with Nicholes recipe cards, here's something to put on one of them!!

Ingredients:

• 8oz plain flour
• 8oz unsalted butter
• 4.5 oz icing sugar (I believe the american for this is confectioners sugar - anyhow it's the real fine stuff, like sugar dust)
• 4.5oz really fine rice flour

What to do:

1. Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl until it looks like fine breadcrumbs.
2. Pour it out into one large baking tray or two small ones - I have two 8"x 11" trays that I use for this. You want a tray that has sides but not too deep.
3. Give your tray a shake to make sure you have a fairly even layer of crumbs all over. Do not be tempted to use a wooden spoon or any thing else to smooth out the shortbread.
4. Bake at about 170 degrees centigrade/325 farenheit/gas mark 3 until the shortbread is a light brown colour. Mark/cut into squares while it is still warm but leave it in the tin to cool.
5. Eat.

Alternatively, for shortbread circles like I made above, punch out a couple of dozen circles of waxproof paper/baking paper and line the bottom of muffin tins with them - put a spoonful of mixture in each hollow and shake the tray to even it all out.

Hope it tickles.