Skip to main content
Dessert

Scottish Receipt for Shortbread

A buttery shortbread dough with sugar, citron, almonds, and optional caraway, baked into oblong cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Scottish Receipt for Shortbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Mix the sugar and fruit well with the flour.

  3. Work in the cold butter until smooth and compact.

  4. Divide the dough into four or more pieces.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll each piece into an oblong cake on a floured surface.

  2. Prick the top with a fork and sprinkle with thinly cut orange and citron.

  3. Press in some large caraway comfits with a rolling pin.

  4. Pinch the edges and place the cakes in floured tins.

  5. Bake for 20 minutes.

  6. The cake is done when it springs back after pressing.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the dough, holding the cakes together as they bake.
Unsalted butter
Provides richness and a tender, crumbly texture by coating the flour particles.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the shortbread brown lightly in the oven.
Citron
Adds candied fruit flavour and a chewy contrast to the crumb.
Blanched almonds
Add nutty flavour and a crunchy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Working in the butter. Cold butter must be worked in just until the dough is smooth and compact. Overworking warms the fat and develops gluten, which makes the shortbread tough instead of short and crumbly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More shortbread recipes

Scotch 71Scottish 10Almond 9Cookies 8Biscuits 5Orange 4 See all 61 →

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes