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Short Bread, Scotch
No. 1.--Mix two pounds of flour with four ounces of moist sugar, two ounces of candied citron, chopped small, and two ounces of sweet almonds, blanched and sliced. Rub one pound of butter into the flour, melt another half pound of butter, and with this work up the flour to a smooth paste. If a plainer cake is wanted, less butter may be used. Sometimes the whole of the butter is melted, and then the bread is more easily made. Roll out the pastry to the thickness of an inch, and in a large oval shape, pinch the edges evenly; prick the surface with a fork or skewer, and sprinkle large comfits over the top. Cut the oval across, thus making two cakes, and place these on paper rubbed with flour, and then upon tins. Bake in a moderate oven. When the bread is lightly browned, it is done enough. It should be remembered that the less the bread is kneaded the shorter it will be. No. 2.--Rub three-quarters of a pound of fresh unsalted butter into half a pound of flour; add a quarter of a pound of ground rice, four table-spoonfuls of moist sugar, two ounces of candied citron, finely minced, and an ounce of sweet almonds, blanched and chopped small. When these ingredients are thoroughly mixed, work the whole into a smooth paste with the yolks of two small eggs. Roll the pastry out to the thickness of half an inch, divide it into four squares, pinch the edges neatly, prick the surface with a "dabber" or fork, sprinkle comfits and sliced citron on the top, and bake as above. Time to bake the bread, half to three-quarters of an hour.
Two versions of the same cake: No. 1 is a plain flour-and-butter shortbread scaled for a household, No. 2 a richer, smaller version bound with egg yolk. Both are workable, but the oven wants running cooler than "moderate" suggests.
- Handle it as little as possibleThe line about kneading is the hinge of the whole recipe. Work the dough only until it coheres; developed gluten turns shortbread tough and cracker-like rather than short and crumbling.
- Oven temperatureThe book gives no figures; 'a moderate oven' is conventionally taken as somewhere around 350F. Shortbread an inch thick will tend to colour at the edges before the centre sets, so 300-325F is the safer practical range. The stated half to three-quarters of an hour is printed after No. 2 and suits the thinner squares; the inch-thick ovals of No. 1 are likely to want longer.
- Moist sugarThis is soft, damp unrefined sugar - light brown sugar is the closest modern equivalent. It is not caster sugar, and the small amount of molasses in it contributes to the browning the recipe uses as its doneness test.
- ComfitsSugar-shelled seeds, traditionally caraway, sold by confectioners as "large comfits." Sugar-coated fennel or aniseed from an Indian grocer are the nearest thing; coloured nonpareils give the look without the seed.
- Ground riceRice flour, ground somewhat coarser than modern packaged rice flour. It is there to interrupt the gluten and give the characteristic sandy bite; do not substitute cornflour, which behaves differently.
- Candied citronThe candied peel of the citron fruit, still sold at Christmas and from Italian grocers. Candied lemon peel is an acceptable stand-in; mixed peel is sweeter and less aromatic.
- Quantities and yieldNo. 1 uses two pounds of flour and a pound and a half of butter (one pound rubbed in, half a pound melted) and makes two large half-ovals - a great deal of cake. Halve it for a modern household. No. 2 makes four squares from half a pound of flour and a quarter pound of ground rice, plus sugar, citron and almonds.
- Paper rubbed with flourBaking parchment on a heavy sheet does the same job. The floured paper was there to stop sticking and to let the very rich dough be lifted off intact while still warm.
- Cutting and coolingScore or cut the shapes before baking, as directed, and cut through again the moment it comes out of the oven. Shortbread is fragile hot and shatters unpredictably once cold.
Scottish shortbread is often traced to the medieval practice of enriching leftover bread dough with butter and sugar and drying it slowly to a biscuit - the name refers to "short," the crumbly quality fat gives a dough by stopping the flour forming a stretchy crumb, and it is from this older sense that "shortening" derives. By the time the book was compiled it had become firmly a festival cake, associated with Hogmanay and with weddings, and the large round or oval "bannock" with its pinched edge and scattering of comfits is the form it records. The citron and almonds mark it as the dressier, more expensive version; the note that "if a plainer cake is wanted, less butter may be used" is the compiler acknowledging that the same recipe served both a New Year's table and an ordinary tea. The ground rice in No. 2 is a common Victorian refinement, said to give a drier, more friable texture.