This pastry is the best in the world.

Sweet, crumbly, crisp yet substantial. Mum’s been making the recipe for a few years now, but neither of us can remember where the recipe came from. It’s outstanding. It’s practically shortbread. Buttery. Sweet. Can pastry be better than that, I ask you? There’s no other pastry I know of that I like to eat by itself.

It’s not like other pastry because there is no liquid binding it together, so it has to be squeezed together and firmly rolled out, but the upside? You don’t have to be gentle with it – no freezing of fats or handling with the tip of one icy finger. You treat it a bit roughly and in return, it charms you. You may find yourself thinking about little pies a lot more after trying this.

Preheat the oven to GM6/200C/400F

Into a large bowl, put 12oz plain flour and 8oz cold unsalted butter that you have cut into cubes.

Rub the butter into the flour. The proportion of butter is so high that you cannot always make it look like breadcrumbs, because you’ll struggle to find particles of flour that aren’t already combined.

Stir 3.5 oz sugar into it. (The original recipe used more, but that really was too sweet)

Now you want to bring it all together. Do not add liquid, really, it’ll be OK.

Squeeze it together into a lump, or series of lumps because now you have an option.

If you want lidded pies, keep a good 1/3 of the dough back. Place the 2/3 dough on a piece of clingfilm and have another piece of clingfilm ready. Squish the dough down a bit.

Place the other piece of clingfilm on top and repeatedly press the rolling pin on to it, to even and spread the dough out a bit.

Then start rolling it properly, but be quite hard on it to get it to stick together. It’s easier than that sounded! Then use a cookie cutter to cut out circles for your tin.

I’ll make an important point here. Really, it is important.

USE PATTY TINS. Do NOT use muffin tins, or funky shallow tins with steep sides to it, because you will struggle to get it out of the tin without collapsing. Patty tins (you know, old fashioned shallow jam tart tins) are perfect because of their shallowness and gently sloping sides. You can pile the filling high, but you need a shallow bottom (so to speak).

OK. Option 2.

Don’t even look at the clingfilm yet. Just gather a little handful of your rubbly dough and put it into the tin

Press into shape with your fingers. Squish, smooth, press. Easy-peasy!

If you want lids on those babies, see the clingfilm trick. Don’t try to quickly roll it out without using clingfilm. I did.

Then I scraped it off my rolling pin and got the clingfilm out again. Lesson learned.

The best thing? This (shortbread) pastry couldn’t care less how you get it from rubble to tin. It sorts itself out in the oven. The hand pressed method makes it a little thicker, of course, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing…

Into the bottom, put some lemon curd, some jam, some mincemeat or… I made a filling using dates and pecans. It’s bordering on pecan pie in taste…

Details of that tomorrow.

Lay your pastry lid on top, smoosh the edges of the bottom case up to meet it, brush with beaten egg and bake for 20 mins.

Let it sit in the tins for only a couple of minutes, then remove (use a small spatula) to a wire rack and dredge with caster or icing sugar.

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Shortbread Pastry

PRINT THIS RECIPE (opens in a new window)

12oz plain flour
8oz cold butter, cubed
3.5oz sugar
1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)
caster or icing sugar to dredge

Rub the butter into the flour.
Stir in the sugar.
Squeeze into a ball (or balls).
Either press into patty tins or roll out between clingfilm – firmly. There is enough to line and lid about 18 holes.
Fill with lemon curd, jam, mincemeat or another filling.
Roll pastry out again and cut out lids using a cookie cutter.
Press lids and bottom together.
Brush with beaten egg.
Bake for 20 mins until golden.
Carefully remove from tin(s) using small spatula.
Dredge with icing sugar or caster sugar.

Intensely lemony, satin creamy pots with sweet, buttery shortbread. This recipe, adapted from one of Nigella Lawson’s (How to Eat) is pure joy; rich enough to satisfy but with enough zing that you don’t feel overloaded.
Once you had made the mixture it needs to sit in the fridge to steep. 2 – 3 days is the recommendation and I would definitely concur.

Before we start, let me say that when we eat these, we like the lemons to punch you in the face and call you names; hence I have increased the recipe to 4 lemons from the original 3. It is an intense recipe there’s no doubt, but if you wish to be cautious, start with 3 lemons and once you’ve added the cream, taste the mix. If you can take some more lemon, go ahead and add the zest and juice of the 4th one. Are you man enough?
Here we go.

Zest all 4 of the lemons into a bowl.

Juice them and add the juice and 285g sugar to the bowl

Add 6 eggs to the bowl, using a hand whisk, whisk them until they are well incorporated.

Add 300ml cream and combine that.

Transfer the contents to a large jug, cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge for at least 2, but preferably 3, days. Yes, DAYS. It gets the flavour steeped in.
You now have 2-3 days to find at least 8 ramekins of 150ml capacity and a roasting tin that will hold them all. I often get about 10 ramekins ready – it’s better than scrabbling around for jam jars whilst sobbing hysterically.

When 2 or 3 days have passed, remove the jug from the fridge and leave it at room temperature for an hour.
Preheat the oven to GM2/300F/150C. Put the kettle on.
You don’t have to do this all at once, you know – take your time.

Give the mix another swipe with the whisk – just to combine, not to get air into it – and pour into the ramekins that you have sitting neatly in a roasting tin.
Once you have evenly distributed it, leave it to sit a bit longer. I go through this procedure to try and lose the fridge coldness from everything because once, something happened. I have a scary tale to share. Sit down with me and hold my hand.

Once after making and serving this, we were washing up and 2 ramekins had cracked, then broke in my hands. Cut me, it did. CUT my hands. Claret all over the place.  Can you imagine if they had finally given up the ghost during dessert? Eeek. Luckily, they held on until the washing up water finally did them in. Better than a mouthful of glass though.  Sorry about that near miss, Bob and Maria, but at least you never knew anything about it.

Oops.

Anyway. Pour hot – not boiling – water into the tin to come about halfway up the ramekins.

Bake for 20-30 mins.
They should be set, but with some wobble, rather than sloshing, in the middle, bear in mind they will set more as they cool.

Remove from the water bath and leave to cool. You can eat them when they’ve cooled, or once cool, refrigerate them until the next day. Get them out of the fridge 2-3 hours before eating them.

Now to the shortbread.

Put 150g softened, unsalted butter and 75g icing sugar into a food processor and whiz to combine. Scrape to get all the bits.

Add 150g plain flour and 75g cornflour and a pinch of salt and process again to combine, scraping to get any stray streaks of flour back in.

Remove and lightly knead briefly to combine, from this

to this in about 3 kneads

You have 2 options now.
1st option.
Form into a cylinder, put in the fridge until firm, then slice and bake. I refrigerate it hard and use a very sharp knife to cut thin slices, but that’s because I like the contrast between the firm shortbread and the unctuous, silky lemon creams. Obviously, the thinner the slice, the firmer it will be. Dredge shapes with caster sugar if you wish.

2nd option.
Put a piece of clingfilm on the work surface, put your dough on top and cover with another piece of clingfilm.
Roll the dough out and cut out shapes with cookie cutters (I found some that were spoon shaped – that was cool).

Bake them straight away. You could gather up the remainder, and roll that into a cylinder, fridge it and cut slices – best of both worlds.

Spoons are a-bakin’

Cooled spoons (I baked them longer than I normally would, just to get them a bit harder)

Cooled slices

Here’s the finished combo.
See how the shortbread dips in nicely? Lovely.

Lemon Creams with Shortbread
(adapted form Nigella Lawson’s ‘How to Eat’)
PRINT THIS RECIPE (opens in a new window)

Lemon Creams:
4 juicy lemons, washed and dried
285g caster sugar
6 eggs
300ml double cream

* Before we start, let me say that we like the lemons to punch you in the face and call you names, when you taste this; hence I have increased the recipe to 4 lemons from the original 3. It is an intense recipe there’s no doubt, but if you wish to be cautious, start with 3 lemons and once you’ve added the cream, taste the mix. If you can take some more lemon, go ahead and add the zest and juice of the 4th one. Are you man enough?*

Zest all 4 of the lemons into a bowl.
Juice them and add the juice, sugar and eggs to the bowl. Using a hand whisk, whisk them until they are well incorporated.
Add the cream and conbine that.
Transfer the contents to a large jug, cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge for at least 2, but preferably 3, days. Yes, DAYS. It gets the flavour steeped in.

You now have 2-3 days to find at least 8 ramekins of 150ml capacity and a roasting tin that will hold them all. I often get about 10 ramekins ready – it’s better than scrabbling around for jam jars whilst sobbing hysterically.

Remove the jug from the fridge and leave it at room temperature for an hour.

Preheat the oven to GM2/300F/150C. Put the kettle on.

Give the mix another swipe with the whisk – just to combine, not to get air into it – and pour into the ramekins that you have sitting neatly in a roasting tin.
Once you have evenly distributed it, leave it to sit a bit longer. I do this to avoid the ramekins cracking in the oven – quite an important point really.

Pour hot – not boiling – water into the tin to come about halfway up the ramekins.
Bake for 20-30 mins.
They should be set, but with some wobble, rather than sloshing, in the middle, bear in mind they will set more as they cool.

Remove from the water bath and leave to cool. You can eat them when they’ve cooled, or once cool, refrigerate them until the next day. Get them out of the fridge 2-3 hours before eating them.

Shortbread:

Preheat oven to GM3/325F/160C

150g unsalted butter, very soft
75g icing sugar
150g plain (all purpose) flour
75g cornflour (corn starch)

Put the butter and icing sugar into a food processor and whiz to combine. Scrape to get all the bits.
Add the flours and a pinch of salt and process again to combine, scraping to get any stray streaks of flour back in.

Remove and lightly knead briefly to combine.

1st option.
Form into a cylinder, put in the fridge until firm, then slice and bake. I refrigerate it hard and use a very sharp knife to cut thin slices, but that’s because I like the contrast between the firm shortbread and the unctuous, silky lemon creams. Obviously, the thinner the slice, the firmer it will be. Dredge shapes with caster sugar if you wish.

2nd option.
Put a piece of clingfilm on the work surface, put your dough on top and cover with another piece of clingfilm.
Roll the dough out and cut out shapes with cookie cutters (I found some that were spoon shaped – that was cool). Bake them straight away. You could gather up the remainder, and roll that into a cylinder, fridge it and cut slices – best of both worlds.

Either way, place shapes on to a parchment lined baking tray and bake for 20-30 mins. Check that the top is dry and that the bottom isn’t still doughy.
Cool on a wire tray. Store in a tin; they keep well.