Welcome to My Kitchen!

I was raised in UK and moved to the USA as a young adult. We raised a family in Oregon and over the years I have made my shortbread with my Mothers recipe, she was born and lived her early life in Edinburgh.

It was her Grandmothers recipe for Shortbread. Still making it in small batches, so there is that unmistakable melt in your mouth homemade taste. While the recipe is unchanged over my years of baking, I have added flavors to it. So there is still that buttery taste and texture but with added delicate flavors depending on the ingredient added. I use only natural quality ingredients with no added preservatives

History of shortbread

Shortbread resulted from medieval biscuit bread, which was a twice-baked, enriched bread roll dusted with sugar and spices and hardened into a hard, dry, sweetened biscuit called a rusk. Eventually, yeast from the original rusk recipe was replaced by butter, which was becoming more of a staple in Scotland.

Although shortbread was prepared during much of the 12th century, the refinement of shortbread is credited to Mary, Queen of Scots in the 16th century. This type of shortbread was baked, cut into triangular wedges called petticote tails, and flavored with caraway seeds.

Shortbread was expensive and reserved as a luxury for special occasions such as Christmas, Hogmanay (Scottish New Year’s Eve), and weddings. In Shetland, it is traditional to break a decorated shortbread cake over the head of a new bride on the entrance of her new house

Why do they call it Shortbread

The large amount of butter is what makes shortbread short: the term short, when applied to biscuits and pastry, means crumbly, like shortcrust pastry should be. It is the reason why the fat added to biscuits and pastries is called shortening.

I have been baking shortbread for a long time and enjoy sharing mine and also a Scottish Tradition