Classic Scotch Shortbread

from HCK archive
Flour (ordinary) – 3 cups
Sugar (white/’castor’ in Eng.) – 2/3 cups
Butter – 1/2 lb

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*Double the recipe if a larger batch is needed. Bonne chance, etc.
Mix the ingredients in a large bowl by hand patiently until all lumps are broken down. Do not melt butter or knead. The mixture should resemble in texture finely raked gardener’s top soil, i.e. it should be fluffy, not lumpy or melted down.

In a pan 8″ x 8″ or a large ‘cookie sheet’ spread the mixture evenly and press it down flat firmly (but not too hard) until it is 1/2″ – 2/3″ thick. With a long knife cut it into pieces or ‘fingers’ about 2-1/2″ long and 1″ to 1-1/2″ wide by running the knife through the mixture horizontally and vertically several times like this:

Bake at 275 degrees (slowly) in a preheated oven exactly for an hour. Shut off the oven**. Take it out quickly and run the knife through the vertical and horizontal lines already made once more to separate the pieces that are stuck together. Meanwhile keep the oven door shut so as not to lose the heat. Put the pan/’cookie sheet’ back into the oven and allow it to bake in the residual heat for another hour. Take out. Let it cool for a few minutes. Munch or store in a biscuit tin (in which the short bread will keep remarkably well for many years, if not centuries).

**If you forget to shut off the oven at the end of an hour, what do you suppose will happen? It would be a shameful waste of good butter.