Wednesday 28 January 2009

Vanilla Oat Shortbread Biscuits

When I saw these on Maria's blog, The Goddess's Kitchen, I thought they looked really lovely - buttery, oaty, crunchy and easy to make too. Instantly made it onto the 'to bake really soon' list. And so I did. The recipe is originally from Rachel Allen's book 'Bake' (which I have so far resisted the temptation to buy - I may not last much longer) and I halved the given recipe as I don't want shortbread coming out of my ears, no matter how lovely it is. Although actually, this shortbread really is lovely. I sometimes find that shortbread is too rich and buttery, but the addition of oats really helps - the oats give a lovely texture and flavour (and oats are good for you, don't you know!). The vanilla is subtle rather than dominant - all in all a very nice recipe.


Vanilla Oat Shortbread Biscuits
Ingredients
100g (3 1/2oz) butter, softened
50g (1 1/2 oz) icing sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
100g (2oz) plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
50g (1 1/2 oz) porridge oats

Method
- Cream together the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the vanilla extract, flour, baking powder and oats and bring together to form a dough. Keep going, it'll come eventually.
- Form into a log (30cm long, 6cm diameter), wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes (I put mine in the freezer - it was still fine to slice after 30 mins).

**Preheat your oven to 180C/Gas 4 now if not already on for something else**

- Remove the clingfilm and slice into rounds 5mm thick and place them on a baking tray. I lined mine with parchment, but I don't think they'd stick anyway. They don't expand much at all, so leave a little space, but not much.
-Bake for 15 minutes until light golden brown and dry to the touch. Mine required a couple of minutes more.
- NB Try to make them all the same size and thickness so that they are all ready at the same time. I had a couple of small 'end of log' pieces which became rather brown.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool then enjoy!


1 comment:

Maria♥ said...

Wow, I missed this post! I'm so glad you made them, they turned out just gorgeous!

Maria
x

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