This recipe for Cardamom & Lemon Shortbread is so easy to make. I originally made it for my blog about 9 years ago. But now I am making it again, this time with a video. The recipe comes courtesy of The Hairy Bikers on BBC Food.
So we have an easy recipe, but does it taste good? The answer to that is a resounding yes! So good, in fact, that it is easy to eat rather more than one ought. With the lovely floral hints that you get with cardamom and the wonderful lemon flavour from zest we have a perfect combination. Of course, as it is a shortbread type biscuits, we also have lots of butter giving even more flavour.
With such an easy recipe these can be ready to eat, having cooled, in just about 30 minutes, or so.
Ingredients
Butter – for me unsalted butter is best. However if you only have salted butter you can use that and omit the salt that I include in the recipe.
Flour – Plain flour or all purpose flour is good for this recipe.
Ground Almonds – these add a certain texture that you don’t get with all flour in shortbread.
Sugar – Caster or granulated sugar is best. I use golden caster sugar which also gives slightly more colour the the shortbread, but that is optional.
Ground Cardamom – this lovely spice has subtle floral overtone I think. It gives such a great flavour. If you cant find it ground you can buy cardamom pod and extract the seeds which you can then grind yourself.
Lemon Zest – without needing to be too precise the zest from one lemon will be enough to provide an excellent flavour.
Salt – this brings out the other flavours so well.
Process for Cardamom & Lemon Shortbread
This is such an easy process. Simply preheat the oven and prepare a couple of baking trays with silicone mats or parchment paper.
I like to rub the zest into the sugar to release the oils, intensifying the flavour. Then cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add in all the other ingredients and mix until everything clumps into a dough.
Divide that dough into 24 pieces, of about 30g in weight(just over an ounce). Roll the pieces of dough into balls and place them on the baking trays. Depending on the size of your trays you might do the same as me and bake in two batches, two trays of 8 each and then another tray of 8.
Bake for about 14 minutes, until the shortbread colour somewhat. Then leave them on the trays for a few minutes before carefully transferring to a cooling rack.
Once they are cool they are ready to serve. Store the biscuits in an airtight container if not eating immediately.
My Bake
I baked my Cardamom & Lemon Shortbreads for 14 minutes, then I let them sit on the trays for a few minutes before putting them onto a wire rack.
With the shortbread cool I was ready to sample one. What a wonderful biscuit, with a lovely crunch, but still quite tender. The flavour, with the subtle cardamom and lemons flavour, was awesome.
These shortbread biscuits are very moreish.
Another very easy recipe is Date Slice.
Cardamom & Lemon Shortbread
24
servings10
minutes12
minutesKeep the screen of your device on
Ingredients
227g(1 cup) softened unsalted butter
250g(1 2/3 cups, based on scooping packed flour into a 250ml cup) plain flour
100g(1 cup) ground almonds
150g(3/4 cup) caster sugar (plus a little more to sprinkle on the top of the shortbread balls)
7g(3 tsp) ground cardamom
3g(about 2 tsp) lemon zest – zest from one lemon
3g(1/2 tsp) salt
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 190C/170C Fan/375F.
- Line a couple of baking trays with parchment paper, or silicone mats.
- Mix the flour, almonds, cardamom and salt together, then set aside.
- Put the sugar into a large bowl and add the lemon zest. Rub both between your fingers to release the lemon oils into the sugar.
- Add the butter and cream it into the sugar until pale and fluffy.
- Tip in the dry ingredients and mix again until eveyrthing clumps into a dough, using a hand to squeeze it together.
- Divid the dough into 24 equal portions, of about 30g each.
- Roll each portion into a ball and place them on the baking trays, leaving a gap between each for spreading.
- Sprinkle a little sugar on the top of each ball then use a glass to press each ball down to flatten them to the size you wish.
- Bake the shortbread for 12 to 14 minutes, until they take on some colour. Baking longer will make more crunchy biscuits.
- Leave the shortbread biscuits on the tray for a few minutes then transfer to a rack to cool.
- Store them in an airtight container once fully cooled.