Almond shortbread

I had almost decided to take a break from blogging as I could not cope up with office, home, kid and blogging.

But that is not to happen. A couple of days back my close friend from college called me(may after 2 years or so) to say that she just discovered my blog and gave a word or two of appreciation about my posts. She also instantly became a follower of my blog. I got the much needed motivation from her at the right time and here I am to post my recipe for almond short bread which I baked last weekend. (Eventhough I don't blog frequently, I have not given up my weekend baking expeditions.)

As usual I adapted this recipe from Stephanie's joyofbaking.

The baked shortbread was crumbly in texture like a cookie, and it tasted perfect, neither too sweet nor too salty.

The definition for shortbread can be found in wikipedia.

Here is the recipe to make 8 shortbread wedges.

Ingredients

Unsalted butter: 113 gms (at room temperature )
Granulated white sugar: 50 gms
Vanilla extract: 1/2 tsp
All-purpose flour/Maida: 85 gms
Almond flour (meal): 30 gms(I did not have this, so I added a tbsp of almond essence)
Rice flour or corn flour: 25 gms(I used rice flour)
Salt: 1/8th tsp
Flaked almonds for decorating the top of the shortbread

As I did not have almond meal, I increased the quantity of all purpose flour and rice flour each by 10 gms.

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees C
2. Grease an 8 inch (20 cm) tart pan with a removable bottom.(I think mine is a bit bigger than the size mentioned here. But still I used that.)
3. Cream butter and sugar until smooth (about 2 minutes, I used an electric blender)
4. Beat in the vanilla extract.I added almond essence also at this stage.
5. In another bowl mix together the flours and salt. Add this mixture to the butter and sugar mixture and beat just until incorporated.
6. Press the shortbread dough evenly into the tart pan.(I used a spatula for this)
8. Using a sharp knife, make shallow lines on the dough starting from centre to get 8or 12 wedges.
9. Gently press the flaked almonds.(I just placed whole almonds at the centre of each wedge)
10. Place in preheated oven and bake until it is browned(medium brown color)about 40-45 minutes.
11. Remove from the oven and allow it to cool.
12. Cut along the already made lines to get the shortbread wedges.

Note: I generally set the oven such that the lower coil is heated during pre-heating and both upper and lower coils are heated when I keep the batter/dough inside the oven. Otherwise, the heating is not even and the baked dish gets burnt at the bottom.