Hazelnut Shortbread

When these shorbread biscuits come out of the oven they are remarkable crumbly, after a day they settle down to be just that bit easier to eat but still delicious. I have hazelnut trees in the garden so toasting the nuts for this shortbread recipe is one of my favourite ways of using them.

 You will need:
110g of unsalted butter
130g of plain flour
40g of rice flour
55g of caster sugar
2 teaspoons of hazelnut oil
1/2 teaspoon of salt
100g of toasted hazelnuts


Begin by placing the butter, sugar, rice flour and hazelnut oil in a food processor. Process until the mixture forms a soft paste. Add the salt and plain flour and process again. The mixture will form a breadcrumb consistency. At the point add the toasted hazelnuts and with the machine on a pulse setting switch on a few times in order to chop up some of the hazelnuts and distribute them. The end result should have a few larger pieces if not whole nuts, as they look attractive in the finished biscuits, so avoid processing too much.

While the mixture still resembles breadcrumbs, transfer to a large bowl and with your hands work the mixture to form a cohesive dough. The warmth of your hands should help achieve this quite quickly. Roll out the dough into a rough sausage shape and place in some clingfilm before placing in the fridge to chill down for a couple of hours. I flattened the edges to form a long brick shape so that when I sliced off biscuits they would have a square shape.

When the dough is nicely chilled it will be easy to slice off 1 centimeter thick biscuits. Place them on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment and bake for 30 to 35 minutes at 150C. Turn the heat down if the biscuits are turning brown, the final result should be a deep beige colour rather brown.  Cool and store in an air tight tin.