Hello everyone,

As tomorrow is Mother’s Day, today I am sharing with you my favourite recipe for shortbread which I will be baking this weekend for my mum as she loves them.

They are super simple to bake and only take 3 basic ingredients, but you can add any flavouring you want to jazz it up a little such as chocolate chips, mixed peel or cherries.

My recipe makes about 5 or 6 medium sized biscuits, or 12 small biscuits which is how many will fit on an average oven tray.

Ingredients:

• 62.5g/ 2oz butter (tip: salted butter gives a better flavour to the shortbread)
• 27.5g/ 1oz caster sugar, plus extra to finish
• 90g/ 3oz plain flour

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 190C/ 375F/ Gas 5.

2. Line your baking tray with greaseproof paper.

3. Beat the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl until smooth using a hand mixer, but a fork will do just fine if you don’t have one.

4. Stir in the flour with a spoon to get a smooth paste, I find it actually helps to use your hands after a little while, to rub the mixture together and combine into a ball of dough.

5. Turn onto a work surface or a cutting board or mat and gently roll out using a rolling pin until the paste is 1cm/ 1/2inch thick.

6. Using your cookie cutter, which can be any shape you like, (go on it’s time to get creative!!) cut out the shapes from the dough and place onto the greaseproof paper in the baking tray. Leave a little gap between each one as even though there isn’t any raising agent in the recipe there is a chance that they will expand a little in the oven.

7. Sprinkle a little caster sugar onto each shortbread and chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.

8. Finally bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until pale golden brown, and set aside to cool on a wire rack.

9. You can then serve them to eat on a plate or package them in a gift box as a surprise.

~ Happy Baking! ~

I hope you are well? I am planning to continue with blogging to my normal schedule as much as I possibly can through this time. I’m sorry I had to skip last week’s post as I haven’t been very well, it is suspected to have been the virus but as they aren’t testing in the UK at the moment if you are self isolating at home, we will never know for sure, but whatever it was is horrible. I don’t want to talk about it too much on here, and I have been trying to avoid and limit my social media use as it’s been making me feel very scared, sad and stressed which hasn’t been great for my mental health. My aim is to keep my blog a safe space where we can come to escape even just for a little while each week.

I’m currently aiming to continue posting weekly, on Saturdays at 4pm GMT, with a mixture of craft, sewing and knitting tutorials, book reviews, baking recipes and more 💛

Follow my crafty adventures and for more updates on my posts check out my Instagram @lilacdaisiesdiy and @princessemily_m

But most importantly stay safe, and best wishes,

Emily M x