Wednesday, May 8, 2024
The following article and recipe about shortbread appeared in the Christmas edition of The Gatesville Messenger 80 years ago on Dec. 24, 1943.
Want to please someone who “has everything” with a really extra special Christmas gift?
A festively decorated round of Royal Scotch shortbread is the perfect answer to that very pressing problem.
The familiar tartan-covered, heather-trimmed tins are missing from the stores this year, so we’ll use a really wonderful old Christmas recipe from Scotland and make some ourselves instead.
A quarter cup of powdered sugar is all the recipe requires, so you can plan to make as many rounds as you can for Christmas gifts.
After all, sugar is a precious item this Christmas, isn’t it? And it’s good to know something so delectable requires so little!
One of the tricks in making good Scotch shortbread is to rub the butter into the flour mixture with the fingertips instead of a pastry blender. The butter softens slightly that way and absorbs the flour and sugar perfectly.
The sliced cherries and the chopped almonds are the ingredients that give the regal touch and unbelievably Christmassy texture to this usually somewhat austere Scotch specialty. It’s so good you just have to taste it to believe it!
Save half a dozen of the most perfect cherries and almonds for decoration or use bits of green angelica with the cherries instead.
If you have a box of glace fruit, you can let your imagination run riot of course and really go to town, but in general the cherries will do the job very nicely indeed.
When the shortbread is baked, cut a round of white cardboard exactly the same size. Slide a broad spatula gently under the round of shortbread when it is cool and lift it carefully on to the cardboard.
Wrap gaily in cellophane and trim proudly with red ribbons and holly, for a gift of Royal Scotch shortbread is a very elegant gift indeed.
Royal Scotch Shortbread
½ cup sifted flour
1/3 cup cornstarch
¼ cup powdered beet sugar
¼ cup butter
1 egg yolk, beaten
¼ cup chopped blanched almonds
1/3 cup candied cherries, quartered
Sift together flour, cornstarch, and sugar. Add butter, blending with fingertips until thoroughly mixed. Add egg yolk and mix well with fork. Add almonds and cherries. Form into a ball. Place in the center of a greased cookie sheet. Pat, or roll out, about half an inch thick keeping as perfect a circle as possible. Pinch edges decoratively. Arrange halved cherries and almonds or angelica in the center. Bake in a slow oven (300 degrees) for half an hour - or until center is done and edges are lightly browned. Allow it to cool. Loosen carefully with spatula before transferring from cookie sheet. The shortbread may be shaped in a square and cut into finger strips before baking if preferred.
