Scottish Shortbread Fingers: Three-Ingredient Butter Cookies That Keep All Week

Preheat the oven to 160°C (325°F). Line a 20 x 30 cm baking tin with parchment, leaving an overhang on the long sides.

Serves 8 (makes 16 fingers)

Ingredients

• 225 g unsalted butter, softened but still cool
• 110 g caster sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for sprinkling
• 225 g plain flour
• 110 g rice flour or cornflour
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C (325°F). Line a 20 x 30 cm baking tin with parchment, leaving an overhang on the long sides.
2. Beat the butter and caster sugar together with a wooden spoon or mixer on low speed for 2 minutes, until creamy and pale but not fluffy. Overbeating traps air and makes the shortbread spread.
3. Sift the plain flour, rice flour, and salt over the butter mixture. Add the vanilla if using. Stir until the dough just comes together into a soft, slightly crumbly mass.
4. Press the dough evenly into the tin with your fingertips, then smooth the top with the back of a spoon. Prick all over with a fork in neat rows.
5. Score the dough into 16 fingers with a sharp knife, cutting about halfway through. Chill the tin in the fridge for 20 minutes so the butter firms up.
6. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the shortbread is pale gold at the edges and still very light on top. Do not let it brown.
7. Sprinkle the surface with the extra sugar the moment it comes out of the oven. Cut fully along the scored lines while warm, then leave to cool completely in the tin.
8. Lift out with the parchment and store in an airtight tin. The fingers keep crisp for 7 to 10 days, and each one wraps neatly for a lunchbox.
9. Shortbread is the pride of Scottish baking, a recipe so old it appears in a 12th-century account of leftover bread dough enriched with butter and sugar. Mary, Queen of Scots, is said to have favored it flavored with caraway, and by the Victorian era it had become the tin every Scottish household kept for guests. Rice flour is the traditional secret for that sandy, melt-away snap, and the fork pricks are not just decoration but a way to let steam escape so the fingers bake flat. It is proof that three humble ingredients, handled gently, can become something worth passing down.

Nutrition (estimated, per serving)

• Calories: 380 kcal
• Protein: 4g
• Fat: 24g
• Carbohydrates: 40g
• Fiber: 1g
• Sugar: 16g
• Sodium: 80mg