[Sca-cooks] Shortbread was Two questions VERY Long

[Johnna Holloway]

I suppose the line in question is this one
"Then take clouted Creame or sweet butter, but
Creame is best: then take sugar, cloves, Mace, saffron and yolks of  
eggs"

The 16th century original did call for cream or butter... I suspect  
butter being common today is because
few people keep a cow and have ready access to cream or cream at hand.
Ayrshire shortbread always seems to include cream, although accounts  
vary as to the amount.

For reasons of length I didn't include everything--

Mace is easy to find--

Spiced Shortbread

1 1/4 cups butter or margarine, softened
1/4 teaspoon McCormick Pure Almond Extract
1/8 teaspoon McCormick Ground Mace
1/8 teaspoon McCormick Ground Nutmeg
2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup confectioners sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt


Place butter in large mixer bowl and beat with electric mixer at low  
speed until fluffy. Add almond extract, mace, and nutmeg.

Add flour, sugar, and salt gradually. Mix thoroughly by hand. Do not  
use electric mixer.

Press firmly into 8x1-inch round shortbread mold, or place on  
ungreased cookie sheet and form into 8-inch circle.

Bake in 250 degree F oven 2 1/2 hours. Cool in pan on wire rack 30  
minutes. Turn out onto serving plate.

Makes 1 shortbread, 8 inches round

This recipe created by McCormick, Inc.
http://www.backofthebox.com/recipes/desserts/spiced-shortbread-g.html

or Jean's Scottish Shortbread
Cinnamon Shortbread
Add the following to the flour/sugar mix, before it is added to the  
butter:
3-4 tablespoons of cinnamon
1/8 - 1/4 teaspoon each of: mace, allspice, cloves, nutmeg
http://www.northbound-train.com/recipes/shortbread.html

All the other variations are well represented in books like Jann  
Johnson's Shortbread.


On Sep 12, 2009, at 8:45 PM, David Friedman wrote:

> Unless I missed something, none of these uses cream instead of  
> butter. They use butter plus a little cream in addition. None uses  
> mace. One uses cloves, but it's quite obviously intended as a  
> chinese influenced variant--shortbread cookie dough plus five spices.
>
> There is a modern recipe that uses saffron, but it's pretty clear  
> reading it that the modern author regards coloring the cookies with  
> saffron as an innovation of her own.
>
> So I think I count that as one of the ingredients in the recipe  
> being discussed being used in a modern shortbread.