I’ve been lacking on the recipe posts the last few weeks. Sorry! I’ve been pretty hectic and been out of the house a lot/getting to grips with the new kitchen and being given the chance to go to a ton of fun events. I’ve baked a few things but outside of the bread I uploaded previously, and I’ve not gotten the snaps that I necessarily wanted, which for me can be a sticking point. However, on a recent trip down to Brighton with work (these work trips won’t be happening for much longer, more on that to come), I let my eye be caught by some fancy biscuits in M&S while I was in Victoria station. The fancy biscuits were Lemon, Earl Grey & Poppyseed Butter Shortbread.
These biscuits were the basis for this post. I really enjoyed them and wanted to try and make them for myself. They went down pretty well and I promptly got an order from three different people. By order I mean people jokingly asking me to send them some and me going “OK, pay for postage”. So I’ve re-baked them and they’ll be going out in the post today.
The first time I baked them I was far too conservative with the Earl Grey and a wee bit too enthusiastic with the Lemon, so this time around I changed the ratios a bit and let the Earl Grey properly shine through. I also did these with icing sugar as it gives them a bit more bite than granulated sugar, but if you use that they’ll be more like your traditional shortbread and work just as well! If you’re wondering why the photos look a bit different and there is a change in shape, these were two different batches baked a couple of weeks apart!
- 222g unsalted butter, cubed and softened
- 100g confectioners’ sugar
- 1½ tsps fresh lemon juice
- 1½ tsps grated lemon zest
- 2 tsps earl grey tea leaves
- ½ tsps vanilla extract
- 255g all-purpose flour, sifted
- 1½ tablespoons poppy seeds
- ½ teaspoon salt
- Cream together the butter and sugar, starting slowly so as not to make the sugar balloon out of the bowl and beat until creamed together.
- In a separate bowl mix together the flour, earl grey, poppy seeds and salt.
- Beat the vanilla, lemon zest and juice into the butter mix then the flour. This will form a very stiff dough.
- Form into a ball then flatten down (if you can flatten it a fair way do it now as it gets tough to roll out once chilled) and stick in the fridge for at least 3 hours to chill.
- Place the dough between two sheets of grease proof paper and roll out until it's about ¼ inch thick. Place back in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile preheat your oven to 150°C (130°C fan assisted) and line a couple of baking trays with grease proof paper.
- Cut out into squares or use a biscuit cutter. Do not re-roll the scraps.
- Prick the middle of each biscuits with a fork and transfer to the prepared baking sheets.
- Place in the oven and bake for 20-25 until they start going gold on the edges.
- Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.