Pastry
Shortbread
Crisp, sandy, all-butter Scottish shortbread made with the classic one-two-three of sugar, butter and flour, with a little cornflour or rice flour for a melt-in-the-mouth texture, baked pale and sprinkled with sugar.
- Serves 16
- Makes 16 fingers
- Hands-on 15 min
- Bake 40–45 min
- Keeps 1 week in a tin
- Scottish
Method
Heat the oven to 160°C (fan 140°C, gas 3). Lightly butter a 20 cm square tin and line the base with baking paper.
Beat the butter (225 g), sugar (100 g) and salt (pinch) together with a wooden spoon or electric whisk until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.
Sift in the flour (275 g) and cornflour (50 g) and mix gently, first with a spoon and then with your hands, until it just comes together into a soft dough. Do not overwork it, or the shortbread will be tough.
Press the dough evenly into the tin and smooth the top with the back of a spoon. Prick all over with a fork and mark into 16 fingers with a knife. Chill for 15 minutes.
Bake for 40–45 minutes until firm and very pale golden; shortbread should not brown.
Sprinkle with the extra sugar while hot, then cut along the marks again. Leave to cool completely in the tin before lifting out; it firms as it cools.
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
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See also
Chef’s notes
- Rounds: roll the chilled dough 1 cm thick, cut into rounds and bake on a lined tray at the same temperature for 15–20 minutes.
- Petticoat tails: press the dough into a 20 cm round, mark into 8 wedges and crimp the edge.
- Flavour ideas from Jamie Oliver: orange zest with chopped dark chocolate, or lemon thyme and vanilla.
- Use good butter: with so few ingredients, its flavour is the shortbread’s flavour.
How this recipe was developed
We compared BBC Good Food’s two best-rated shortbread recipes with Jamie Oliver’s Scottish shortbread, America’s Test Kitchen’s best shortbread and the most-rated version on Allrecipes.
- One, two, three. BBC Good Food’s shortbread (4.3/5 from 311 ratings) uses the traditional proportions of 1 part sugar, 2 butter and 3 flour; Jamie Oliver’s is close to this.
- Rice flour or cornflour. BBC Good Food’s other shortbread (4.55/5 from 105 ratings) adds rice flour, and Allrecipes’ Melt-in-Your-Mouth Shortbread (4.3/5 from 1,534 ratings) adds cornflour, for a shorter, sandier crumb.
- Cornflour, baked pale. America’s Test Kitchen’s Best Shortbread (4.4/5 from 153 ratings) also uses cornflour; we bake at 160°C so it cooks through without colouring.
- Do not overwork. All the versions warn against kneading; we bring it together with the hands only at the end.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 1 November 2026):
- BBC Good Food (Lulu Grimes): Shortbread (4.3/5, 311 ratings)
- BBC Good Food (Good Food team): Shortbread recipe (4.55/5, 105 ratings)
- Jamie Oliver: Scottish shortbread (5/5, 1 ratings)
- America's Test Kitchen: Best Shortbread (4.4/5, 153 ratings)
- Allrecipes (Jennifer Wilton): Melt-in-Your-Mouth Shortbread (4.3/5, 1534 ratings)
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.