Gluten-Free Shortbread

Buttery, crumbly gluten-free shortbread

Today, the very lovely Alice came to help me improve my blog (yes, this one you’re reading) as she is a whizz with all things wordy and bloggy. To show my appreciation for generously taking time out of her day off, I made her some shortbread. Alice’s is the queen of gluten-free (she’s editor of The Gluten-Free Dining Guide) so I made GF shortbread, but you could substitute normal plain wheat flour for the rice flour if you’re not bothered about sticking to a gluten-free diet. Keep the corn flour though, as it helps give your biscuits a short, crumbly texture.

Gluten-free shortbread

Ingredients:

• 125g caster sugar
• 100g corn flour
• 160g rice flour
• 175g butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Sift together the sugar and flours. Add the butter and rub together with your fingers tips until you’re beginning to get a breadcrumb texture, then add the vanilla and continue to mix and squeeze the mixture until it all comes together as a ball. Roll your dough into a sausage about 2 inches in diameter, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour.

Line a couple of baking trays with greaseproof paper. Take your chilled biscuit dough from the fridge and unwrap it. Use a sharp knife to cut into discs about 1cm thick and transfer to the prepared baking sheet. Make sure you leave some space in between as they will spread a bit. Chill the biscuits again for about 20 minutes whilst you heat your oven to 150C. Bake for 15-25 minutes (it will depend on the size/thickness of your biscuits how long they take), they should be a pale golden colour when done. Allow to cool on the tray as they’ll be soft when you first take them out of the oven. You can either leave them plain, dust with icing sugar or even drizzle them with melted chocolate!