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!

Lemon, Earl Grey & Poppyseed Short Biscuits

 

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Prep time

4 hours

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

4 hours 20 mins

 

Author: The Bearded Baker

Serves: 16 biscuits

Ingredients

• 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

Instructions

1. 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.
2. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, earl grey, poppy seeds and salt.
3. Beat the vanilla, lemon zest and juice into the butter mix then the flour. This will form a very stiff dough.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Meanwhile preheat your oven to 150°C (130°C fan assisted) and line a couple of baking trays with grease proof paper.
7. Cut out into squares or use a biscuit cutter. Do not re-roll the scraps.
8. Prick the middle of each biscuits with a fork and transfer to the prepared baking sheets.
9. Place in the oven and bake for 20-25 until they start going gold on the edges.
10. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

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