The last month or so, the Muslim community in Cape Town have been going through Ramadan which is ended by Eid al-Fitr, a Muslim holiday and celebration. Ramadan is a month of fasting and, as with many celebrations, Eid al-Fitr involves a lot of food.

This year Eid al-Fitr is coming at the end of this week and I have had 3 orders for 50 pieces of assorted shortbread plus some pillow biscuits. Here comes the fun and the phone call to my mother for her shortbread recipe (below). Obviously 50 pieces of plain shortbread could get a bit boring so I looked around for something to add and make the shortbread slightly more interesting. I pulled out some strawberries, dried cranberries, ground almonds and chocolate chips. I ended up only using the cranberries and chocolate chips, which were both successful and yummy.

I also had some cookie cutters, which I decided to break out and use just for a bit of variety. They were cheap and cheerful and needless to say are no more. I managed to break 5 of them so will be going out to get some more. Although at R5 for 6, I’m not that fussed about them breaking.

Experiment 1: Cranberry Shortbread Hearts

The dried cranberries are lovely in shortbread. Not only do they provide something different to look at, but they add a nice chewiness to the otherwise crunchy shortbread.

Experiment 2: Chocolate Chip Shortbread

The hippo cookie cutter was really cute and I used it for the plain and chocolate chip shortbread as well as a round one for the chocolate chip shortbread. This adds a nice flavour element to the shortbread, but no change to the texture. Beware when you use cookie cutters on this variety as the plastic cookie cutters will not hold up to cutting through chocolate chips.

This is also great for Christmas and they keep for ages so you can make a batch or 2 and just stick them in an airtight container for at least a month.

This is the shortbread recipe (note that 1 pound(lb) equals 464gms):

Shortbread

• 1lb butter (don’t substitute margarine!)
• 1/2lb caster sugar
• 1lb cake flour
• 1/2lb maizena/cornflour
• pinch of salt
• caster sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.

Cream the butter and caster sugar well.

Sift in the cake flour, maizena/cornflour and salt and combine. (This is easier if done in about 3 stages.)

Knead the dough, use your hands, until the sugar is dissolved (approx 10 mins) . The more you need the creamier the shortbread.

This is where I added the cranberries/chocolate chips. I split the dough into 3 portions and added a handful of the cranberries to one and a handful of chocolate chips to the other.

Either press into a pan so that dough is about 1cm thick, prick well with a fork and put in oven

OR

roll onto counter surface (put a little flour on the surface and rolling pin if it’s getting sticky) and cut out cookies, placing on an ungreased baking sheet or baking paper on a baking sheet. (It’s easier to only work with a small amount of dough at a time.) Prick gently with a fork.

Place in the preheated oven for approximately 30 minutes until shortbread is firm and crunchy. Don’t let it go too brown, but a little colour is good. Sprinkle with caster sugar and cut while hot, if you have not used cookie cutters.

These are moreish cookies, you think you’ll only have 2, but then you want another one and another one…..

I’m off to make some more for my third order to be delivered tomorrow. Happy baking….or let me know how many you want:)