Our Honey Shortbread recipe

  

This recipe will make around 12 crumbly, melt in the mouth, 6cm honey shortbread rounds. Unlike the thick sticks of shortbread you might find in a supermarket, these are both light and delicate. We used a 6cm circular cutter but you can of course cut them in any shape you like. As this is honey shortbread it may be fun to use a hexagonal cutter and arrange them on a plate in the style of a honeycomb!

This delicious shortbread is the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea or coffee and has delighted everyone who we have given them to! It has a low ingredient count and is relatively quick and easy to make. So let's get baking!

To make this honey shortbread you will need:

• 120g Plain Flour
• 60g Cornflour
• 120g Unsalted Butter
• 60g Just Bee Original Honey
• A Pinch of Salt
• Caster or Granulated Sugar for Sprinkling

• A medium sized mixing bowl
• A small mixing bowl
• A large baking tray
• A biscuit cutter
• A cooling rack

Time to make and bake: 45-60 mins.

1: Beat the butter and honey together.

You might presume we'll start by preheating the oven as we usually do. But with this recipe there will be plenty of time for that later.

Instead we start by taking our medium sized mixing bowl and adding the butter and honey to it. To make the blending a little easier you can cut the butter into smaller chunks before adding it. I use the back of a tablespoon and just keep pushing it into the butter until it's soft and all the honey is combined with it, but you can use a fork or whatever works best for you.

Once the butter is up to room temperature it shouldn't be too difficult to just beat them together in just a few minutes.

2: Combine and add the dry ingredients.

Combine the cornflour, plain flour and a pinch of salt together in a small bowl with a fork. Then add a little at time to the butter and honey blend in the large bowl, mixing it with the same spoon or fork that you used before.

Once it's all added it may look like a bowl of flour coated crumbs, but don't worry, it will all come together.

3: Form into a soft dough ball.

Give your hands a good wash and dry, then using your hands start to push the mixture in the bowl into a ball, it should come together easily and form a ball of soft, buttery dough.

4: Chill the dough.

Depending on what you have handy in the kitchen you can either wrap the ball in cling film or pop it in a sealed lid container before putting it in the fridge. It doesn't really matter as long as it's covered. We'll be chilling it for 30 minutes in the fridge, which will give us plenty of time to prepare the baking tray and pre-heat the oven!

5: Let's get prepared!

Our shortbread dough might be chilling for half an hour, but unfortunately we won't be! The baking tray is best lined with baking paper, but if you don't have any just grease the tray lightly with a little butter to make sure our shortbread doesn't stick to it.

We also have plenty of time to clear the decks and clean up a little and even wash up the bowls we used. We want a nice clean surface to roll our dough onto and remember to keep a little flour around for rolling out onto.

6: Get the oven on!

Let's pop the oven on now before we forget! We want it set to Gas Mark 5 or 190c (170c if you have a fan assisted oven.) Check the clock or your timer, the dough should be ready to come out of the fridge soon! (If it isn't quite time yet, then feel free to make a cuppa while you wait!)

7: Rolling and cutting.

Roll the chilled dough out to about a 5mm thickness and cut out your shortbread shapes. You can put them fairly close together on the tray if you need to as they should not spread out in the oven.

Once they are all on the tray you can sprinkle them liberally with caster or granulated sugar. This will not only give them a nice sweet taste but the shortbread will also glisten like it has little diamonds all over it!

8: Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Put the tray on the middle shelf and bake for 10-12 minutes, after which time the shortbread should be a light golden brown. Don't over bake them, 10 minutes is usually enough in most ovens.

9: Remove and cool.

When your shortbread is baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack. While the shortbread is still warm it's especially important to be gentle with them. I used a very thin metal fish slice to gently slide under and transfer them to the wire rack. Once they are cooled they will still be light and delicate but robust enough to handle normally. If you need to let them cool on the baking tray for a while then do so.

Once cool, they can be stored in an airtight container to keep fresh.
  

Ideas and options

You could add almost anything you fancy to this recipe, a few chocolate chips works great with honey, as do little pieces of dried cranberry. Although many will prefer them just as they are with the delightful light honey taste taking centre stage.

If you don't want to add the sugar on top and have them solely sweetened by the honey then that is an option too but I felt there was something missing when I tried that. You could always leave it off a couple in the batch to see how you feel personally.

We hope you enjoy this Just Bee Honey Shortbread, it didn't last long in my house!

Feel free to comment below with your own experiences and thoughts on this recipe.