Rosemary and semolina shortbread
Ovens can be dodgy bastards. See that thermometer dial on yours? If your oven’s calibration slips, which it inevitably will, the dial is not necessarily the most reliable indicator of the exact temperature your oven is at. Bummer. But there’s a simple workaround and if you bake a lot, it’s totally worth the few bucks investment; go shout yourself a little oven thermometer. You just pop it on a shelf and it reads where the temperature is actually at. So handy. Goodies like this shortbread need a low-ish oven so it bakes through to lovely crispness without taking on colour. To make this you only need a few stock-standard ingredients (although this one uses fine semolina, for a slightly gritty texture), plus some fresh rosemary. Which you can leave out if you like but the rosemary does give a fabulous, slightly resinous flavour. You could always use finely grated orange or lemon zest instead. You’ll be whipping this up in 10 minutes. It’s so ridiculously easy.
MAKES 12 PIECES
250g very soft unsalted butter
40g (⅓ cup) cornflour
40g (⅓ cup) pure icing sugar, sifted
75g (⅓ cup) caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
300g (2 cups) plain flour, sifted
70g (⅓ cup) fine semolina
2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary leaves
icing sugar and fresh rosemary leaves, for sprinkling
Preheat the oven to 160˚C. Line the base of a 21.5cm round shallow cake tin with baking paper.
Combine the butter, cornflour, icing sugar and sugar in a bowl then, using electric beaters, beat until thick and creamy. Stir in the vanilla, then add the flour, semolina and rosemary and stir until a firm dough forms.
Press the dough into the tin, smoothing the top even and crimping the edges with the end of a teaspoon or fork tines, if you like.
Bake the shortbread for 30 minutes or until dry and firm to the touch – it shouldn’t colour too much. Cool it a little in the tin, then use a sharp knife to cut it into wedges. Cool it completely in the tin, then carefully turn it out. Dust it heavily with sifted icing sugar and scatter with some rosemary leaves. The shortbread will keep, without the rosemary leaves on top, stored in an airtight container in a cool dry place, for up to a week.
