Christmas Shortbread Stars

Christmas is not Christmas without some traditional home made shortbread. These are perfect in your biscuit tin gift box, but they are also a lovely side dish for a boxing day buffet or a cheeseboard. One of my personal favs is to add dried cranberries instead of orange rind and make a wreath out of the stars by sticking them together with a small amount of icing. This makes a perfect centre piece for a cheese board. The tribes favourite is to drizzle them in chocolate. A more festive way would be to have cinnamon spiced shortbread by mixing your sugar for coating them with cinnamon. 



Shortbread is one of the most famous Scottish cookies. It is eaten around Christmas and is also an essential part of a traditional Scottish New Year (​called Hogmanay). The success of a "shorty"—the Scottish nickname for shortbread—is to handle the dough with care and work it as little as possible. Do not pound or knead it heavily and make sure your hands and the equipment you use are cold. If you overwork the dough, too much gluten will develop, the butter will melt, and your crumb will be either too chewy or too tough. A successful shortbread is light and crumbly, with a dense, buttery taste. These traditional Scottish treats have very few ingredients, which is why using the best butter you can find is important. 



Ingredients
175g butter
2 tbsp icing sugar
75g caster sugar
2 tbsp water
1/2 tsp cinnamon
250g plain flour
1 tbsp orange peel

Method

• Place butter and flour in a bowl and rub together until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.
• Stir in the rest of the ingredients along with 2 tbsp of cold water and combine to form a ball.
• Roll out on to a lightly floured surface to a thickness of 2.5mm.
• Using a 4cm star cutter, cut out approx. 40 stars.
• Place the stars onto a baking sheet and bake for 10-20 minutes until golden.
• Mix together the icing sugar and the cinnamon and lightly dust over the stars.

​I've included images below of all the ways these shortbread biscuits can be decorated or used in a festive way, if you give these a go, do please let me know or share a picture to my email address thewarriorlady00@gmail.com and I will give your bakes a feature below also. Happy baking - much love, Steph xxx