We are having a bit of a ‘Barney Mysteries’ week as Fiona has reviewed The Rockingdown Mystery for us this week and I’m going to tell you about the shortbread from our favourite Jane Brocket book Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer.

This recipe is based on the cook Mrs Glump’s melt in the mouth shortbread, clear by the title of the recipe, that is supposed to be the best recipe that Ms Brocket had found. I know I have reviewed a shortbread recipe before but I thought I would give you a comparison between the recipes and the final product.

Now you will recall from the previous blog that I have been making the other recipe from childhood so you can suspect that I would be a bit biased. However this recipe does make very nice shortbread biscuits, even if the beginning takes a lot of elbow grease if you’re like me, and forget to take the butter out of the fridge.

Anyway, simple ingredients and a simple method. So let me share it with you.

The ingredients are as follows;

• 170g butter, softened
• 85g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling.
• 230g plain flour
• 30g cornflour

Now I’ve never used the cornflour in the recipe before so this is new to me. I must say I haven’t quite worked out what it does, but the biscuits turned out well, so I won’t knock it.

Now for the method;

1. Preheat the oven to 180c or gas mark 4
2. In a mixing bowl, beat the butter until creamy with a wooden spoon or electric mixer (the amount of times I had to remove the butter from the electric mixer is ridiculous!)
3. Add the the sugar and beat until pale and fluffy. (For me the butter creamed a lot better when the sugar was added).
4. Sift in the flour and cornflour and work into the mix with a wooden spoon or your hands until it comes together.
5. Place dough on a floured surface and knead gently a few times to make smooth and rollable.
6. Using a wooden rolling pin, roll out of the dough to a thickness of about 5mm then cut out rounds with a biscuit cutter.
7. Place the rounds slightly apart on a baking tray.
8. Knead the remains back into a ball and repeat point 6.
9. Prick biscuits with a fork and sprinkle with sugar
10. Bake for 12-15 mins (I needed 15 mins) or until the shortbread is firm but still pale. Do not let them go golden or worse brown.
11. Transfer onto wire rack and leave biscuits to cool.

So there you have it, how to make really good, Blyton approved biscuits! Please give them a go and tell us what you think?