#144 Spiral shortbread

We found a children's baking book by Sara Lewis in the library and we instantly fell in love with the spiral shortbreads featured in the book. Of course we had to  make it and we had so much fun! A very simple recipe, we loved the pretty pattern after we cut the roll. We both liked how it was not overly sweet like the regular cookies. We made different shapes from the scraps, marbled butterflies and hearts. :) This is a really good recipe to bake with kids. We will make many more in the future.

Yield: 16 pieces

SPIRAL SHORTBREAD

Ingredients:

2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa pwd

1 tbsp boiling water

1 cup butter - at room temperature

2.5 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup superfine sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Dissolve the cocoa powder in the boiling water until smooth.
2. Mix the butter, flour and sugar into a crumbly mix. Divide equally between 2 mixing bowls.
3. In one bowl, add the vanilla extract. Knead well and set aside
4. Add the cocoa paste to the other bowl and knead well, until the chocolate blends well into the flour mixture, the more you knead, the darker the dough color will be.
5. Roll out the two doughs between 2 sheets of parchment paper into 8 inch squares each.
6. Carefully place the cocoa dough over the vanilla dough. Roll the two together as tightly as possible.
7. Chill for 15 mins. In the meanwhile, preheat oven to 325 F degrees.
8. Cut the rolls into about 16 slices. Place on ungreased baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet before serving.

Shortbread is a classic Scottish dessert that is made with flour, butter and sugar and is baked at a low temperature to avoid browning. It was an expensive luxury and for ordinary people, shortbread was a special treat reserved just for special occasions such as weddings, Christmas and New Year. In Shetland, it was traditional to break a decorated shortbread cake over the head of a new bride on the threshold of her new home. It has been attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots, who in the mid-16th century was said to be very fond of Petticoat Tails, a thin, crisp, buttery shortbread originally flavoured with caraway seeds. Read more from our source here

(^^,)