Buttery, subtly nutty and just crumbly enough, these almond shortbreads are simplicity itself, both to source the ingredients for and to make. No chilling necessary if you don’t have time, just mix, roll, cut and bake, filling the house with warm vanilla and the promise of an excellent partner for your next cup of tea. House sales, visits to grandma and that smug feeling of having filled the cookie jar with something vaguely virtuous, but secretly very moreish - all optional.
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Almond shortbread
makes about 20
These simple shortbreads are short, buttery and everything a shortbread biscuit should be but with the extra nuttiness that ground almonds bring to the party. If plain is not your thing, add chocolate chips, chunks of stem ginger, citrus zest, extracts or spices according to your whim.
1 tsp yogurt
½ tsp vanilla extract (optional)
¼ tsp psyllium husks
70g soft salted butter
40g caster sugar
85g Doves white gluten free flour (or a similar xanthan gum free all purpose mix)
30g cornstarch (or potato starch)
50g ground almonds (almond flour USA)
¼ tsp fine salt
Mix yogurt, vanilla and psyllium husks and set aside for a moment. Beat butter and sugar together until slightly lighter in colour and then beat in the psyllium mixture. Sieve in Doves flour, cornstarch, ground almonds and salt and work the flour into the butter mixture to form a firmish dough.
Dust the work surface with Doves flour. Squash the dough into a rectangle (a bench scraper is useful here) and then roll out to a thickness of about 1cm, maintaining nice square edges on your rectangle by bashing them back into place with your bench scraper or rolling pin. Cut into 10-20 pieces depending on how large you want your shortbreads to be – they don’t expand much. Prick each biscuit decoratively with a fork or skewer and then if you have time, chill for 10 minutes in the freezer or longer in the fridge (until firm) before baking.
Bake on a parchment covered tray for about 24-25 mins at 160ºC/320ºF fan, until firm and just tinged with gold. They will crisp up on cooling but should feel firm when you take them out of the oven. Wait for 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack and store in an airtight tin in a hiding place for up to a week.
Dairy free shortbread
In place of soft butter, use vegan baking margarine such as Vegan Block or Flora Plant Butter (it must have a low water content). Or if you would prefer to use coconut oil, melt 40g coconut oil and allow to return to room temperature. When the coconut oil is cold (not fridge cold), beat in 30g of chilled high fat coconut yogurt. The coconut oil and yogurt should solidify a bit to form something that has the texture of whipped butter. In place of dairy yogurt to mix the psyllium, use a dairy free yogurt – any kind will do. Add a few drops of Japanese rice vinegar if you like - to add buttery flavour and balance the coconut. Chill the dough a little before rolling if it is soft or sticky, but don’t chill so it is firm or it will crumble.