Cardamom Shortbreads

Name: How to cook Cardamom Shortbreads - cookcic.com
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 30 min
Cuisine: Us

Introduce

Chef :

Joanne

Cardamom Shortbreads

I love the flavour of cardamom and in this recipe Yotam Ottolenghi adds it to crisp, sweet shortbread. Ottolenghi's original recipe rolls the shortbread in finely chopped pistachio nuts, which looks beautiful, but I never have any raw pistachios when I feel the need to bake these so I've always used demerara sugar instead; cheaper, crunchier, and easier.

Ingredient

cardamom pods

200 g

butter

25 g

ground rice

240 g

plain flour

70 g

icing sugar

beaten egg

Cooking instructions

* Step 1

Lightly crush the cardamom pods to release the seeds, discard the shells and put the seeds into a mortar. Crush finely with the pestle.

* Step 2

Place the butter, ground rice, flour and icing sugar in a food processor and mix until you have a dough.

* Step 3

Turn the dough out onto the work surface and push with your hands into a roll, about 3-4 cm in diameter. Wrap in plastic film and place in the fridge for an hour. Chilling is an important stage, don't rush it, otherwise the shortbreads will spread too much when they're cooking.

* Step 4

Take the roll out of the fridge and remove the film. Brush with beaten egg and roll in demerara sugar. Place back in the fridge for another 30 minutes.

* Step 5

Preheat the oven to 150°C/Gas 2. Take the roll out of the fridge and cut into thin slices, about 5mm thick, and place on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment. You could cut the roll in two and store the other half in the fridge for baking another day. I used half the roll and it made 13 biscuits.

* Step 6

Sprinkle a little vanilla sugar over the top of the biscuits and bake for around 15 minutes on a low shelf. I think the secret of getting these shortbreads crisp is to make sure you don't cook them too quickly, and that they bake to a pale golden colour.