These melt in the mouth Cardamom Scented Shortbread biscuits are just heavenly and a doddle to make. They’ll elevate your morning coffee to sublime levels.
Admittedly it’s hard to improve on perfection, however I thought I’d give it a go with these Cardamom Scented Shortbread. So I took the basic shortbread recipe and played around with adding various quantities of freshly ground cardamom seeds. Cardamom has become one of my favourite spices in recent years.
I came up with the idea over the Christmas holiday when, even though we were drowning in crisps, biscuits and other festive nibbles, I was getting baking withdrawal. We also had a team of teenagers staying (Hi Kieren, Eleanor & Holly!) who were happy to give brutally honest feedback. Amazingly they got the collective thumbs up :)
I lurve shortbread, although I kind of wish I didn’t as the butter really doesn’t make me feel all that well. However some things in life are so good that they’re worth a little bit of suffering, don’t you think?
One day perhaps I’ll find the perfect fat to replace the butter with, but so far it has been a fruitless search. Even if the texture gets close, the flavour of a good shortbread comes (entirely?) from the mound of butter hidden within each piece. Sigh.
Bring out these bad boys when lunch is still hours away or you need a sweet kick after dinner. If a band of teens enjoyed them, I’m pretty sure you will too ;)
Oh, and if you find yourself with an insatiable cardamom habit too, why not give my latest addiction a go – Cardamom Coffee. The two flavours complement each other beautifully.
- 250 g salted butter
- 125 g caster sugar
- 250 g plain flour sifted
- 125 g cornflour
- 10 cardamom pods seeds removed and ground into a fine powder
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Preheat the oven to 150/300/gas2. Grease an 8" quiche dish.
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Dust off your mixer and cream the butter and sugar together until it is light and fluffy.
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Sift in the flour, cornflour and cardamom powder and mix gently with a spoon until it is beginning to combine. Next get your hands on there and smush the crumbs up into a dough. You'll think this recipe is rubbish and it'll never form a dough, just hang on in there and keep going ;)
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Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out gently until it is around the size of a dinner plate.
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Carefully pick up the slab and lay it into the quiche dish, don't worry if it breaks up or otherwise misbehaves, just squidge it into place with your fingers and smooth over with a large spoon until it is relatively flat. Score out 'petticoat tails' into the dough for as many pieces as you want (I scored into 8) and use a fork to gently prick the shortbread all over.
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Bake in the preheated oven for 50 minutes, sprinkle with a little more sugar when it first comes out and let cool slightly before removing from the tin and letting cool fully on a cooling rack.
Coriander Queen says
This looks absolutely gorgeous, I adore shortbread as well, love the idea of adding cardamom as well!
choclette says
Haha Janie, start the new year as you mean to go on – butter indeed!
Love shortbread and I often add cardamom to mine too – it’s such a lovely spice. Yours looks wonderful.
Heidi Roberts says
This looks really moorish – need to give it a try!
Andrea @ Made With Pink says
This looks so lovely. I’ve always wanted to make shortbread. I’m not sue why I haven’t as it’s so simple. I’m not a fan of cardamom, but wonder if I could add another spice instead? I like the idea of adding spice to it
Jane Sarchet says
Oooh, how about a sprinkle of nutmeg? I would probably get some brown sugar in there too if I was using nutmeg – do let me know what you come up with ;)
Janie x
Tracy Wood says
I love shortbread Jane, but don’t make it that often and have never made it in its traditional shape. Yours looks fantastic, but don’t try to find a substitute for butter. ( This said while I greedily eat toast with lots of butter and homemade jam.)
xxTracy
Jane Sarchet says
I know Tracy, out of all the dairy foods I’ve given up, butter is still the one that I miss the most. It doesn’t make me quite as ill as milk or soft cheese but I still feel pretty rough for a couple of days. Hey ho :D
Thanks for stopping by lovely ;)
Janie x
Emma @ Adventures of a London Kiwi says
Sometimes a walk on the bad side is just SO good!
Jane Sarchet says
Mwahahahaha Exactly Emma ;)
Janie x
recipesfromapantry says
I foodie love you for giving me the opportunity to drool over these.
Jane Sarchet says
I foodie love you too Bintu ;)