Shortbread biscuits are one of my favourite types of biscuits. In this video I show you how to bake the best lemon shortbread / shortbread cookies which is quick and simple. It is said that they originate from Scotland and were traditionally served around the festive season. The most basic shortbread biscuits recipe is made with just four ingredients, butter, sugar, vanilla extract, and flour.

Nowadays, however, a lot can be added to the basic dough, for example, chocolate chips to make chocolate chip shortbread.

This lemon shortbread recipe is quite delicate and an almost melt in the mouth kind of recipe and to achieve that I used some cornflour as well as plain white wheat flour. The lemon shortbread gets its lemon flavour from lemon zest not extract.

Ingredients

• 125g butter, room temperature
• 180g plain flour
• zest of one lemon
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 65g caster sugar, plus more for sprinkling on top of the shortbreads

Method

• Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the lemon zest and lemon juice.
• Add the flour and mix with a wooden spoon. Using your hands, bring the mixture together to form a dough. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
• Remove from the fridge, roll out on a floured surface to around 3-5mm in thickness. Cover the disc in cling film and return to the fridge for a further 15 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 150°C
• Cut out shortbread shapes using cookie cutters, you will have more or less biscuits depending on the size of your cutter.
• Sprinkle with granulated sugar and bake for around 17-20 minutes until they begin to brown around the edges.
• Allow to cool for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Orange Shortbread