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Joen's Recipes



Grandma's Scotch Shortbread

Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened (1 cup = 2 cubes or 2 sticks)
10 tablespoons sugar
3 cups flour


Directions
Mix butter and sugar with fork until blended. Stir into the sugar mixture two and one-half cups flour. Knead the dough five to ten minutes, adding remaining flour as you knead. Knead the mixture until the dough sticks together.

Put the dough into a metal, ungreased pan. Press down with your knuckles. Prick the dough with a fork to the bottom of the pan in frequent intervals. Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes. Cut while warm.

Hint: If you use a 9 x 9 inch pan, the shortbread will be quite thick. If you prefer a thin, crunchier version, you can put the dough in a larger pan (e.g. 9 x 13). Our family prefers the former version.

To store shortbread, use a tin that has been lined with wax paper. It should last for a few weeks. (In our family, we must also hide the tins, so the shortbread will last until the holidays.


Notes
My grandmother, Janey Crawford Stewart, left Scotland as a teenager and began her adult life in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. There she met my grandfather. Together they raised six sons. As the boys grew, the family eventually settled on land in Custer, Washington, a farming community quite close to the Canada-USA border.

Grandma always had wanted a daughter, but fate interfered with her desire. I, being her eldest grandaughther, then became her much-awaited-for pseudo daughter. We were extremely close, and I learned much of my cooking and baking skills from my grandmother while I lived with my grandparents for extended periods of time. One of our family?s favorite recipes from my grandmother?s heritage is Scotch Shortbread. There are many shortbread recipes, and each Scottish family probably has its favorite variation. Our recipe results in a very rich shortbread---one piece is really all one needs at one sitting (I think). It is excellent to for either dessert or afternoon teas.



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