Quality comes first
The flavour of butter is the highlight. Always use a good quality, “real” butter if you want to make the best biscuits!
True to temp
Make sure your butter is at the correct temperature – use unsalted butter softened to room temperature for creaming and cold, unsalted butter for biscuits and pastries that require butter to be rubbed into the flour.
Be cool
Shortbread and other butter doughs need to be chilled before rolling to stop the butter becoming too soft and the dough unmanageable. To avoid your dough sticking to the bench, try rolling between sheets of baking paper. On very hot days you may need to chill the dough before, during and after rolling, cutting and baking.
Think ahead
Most biscuit and shortbread doughs can be stored in the fridge for 3 to 4 days or frozen for 2 months, making it easy to get ahead and be organized.
Stop and drop the roll
If you have trouble rolling out a large piece of dough, instead form the dough into a large thick sausage shape, chill well then simply slice off rounds to bake.
Love the spread
Although unsalted butter is the preferred choice for bakers, spreadable butters like Western Star Soft and Spreadable Soft n Less Salt can be used straight from the fridge. For creaming butter and sugar for biscuit and cake doughs it should be used chilled.
Don’t work too hard
Shortbreads should be light, buttery and a little crumbly or “short”. Don’t overwork the dough once the flour is added and bake only until just light golden.
Creamy dream
For perfect buttercream filling for biscuits, use Western Star Soft n Less Salt straight from the fridge and make in the usual way, omitting the milk. The little touch of salt particularly compliments chocolate, coffee and caramel flavoured biscuits.
Scrap that
A great use for leftover pastry leftovers is to make shortbread crumbs. Simply place scraps on a baking tray and bake until golden. When cool either break into shards or crumble into delicious crumbs to top ice cream and desserts or use mixed with melted butter to make a cheesecake or pie crust.
Crisp up
In very humid weather, biscuits can become soft. Simply return to the oven for a few minutes to re-crisp, then cool and store as usual.
