Dish · british

Shortbread

A dense, crumbly cookie of just butter, sugar and flour, no eggs or leavener, baked until pale gold and cut into wedges or bars.

Where it comes from

Built around a short ingredient list where butter quality does most of the work, it grew from a baking tradition where plain grain and fat needed to stretch further than richer, egg-based baking.

What cooks argue about

How little the dough gets handled decides the texture: overworking it develops gluten and turns what should be tender into something closer to tough, and some bakers swap in rice flour for more crumble.

Nobody has published a shortbread recipe yet. The page stays out of search until one exists, which is the rule for every thin page here.