- Making time: 25 minutes
- Cooking time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:
- 175g plain flour
- 50g ground almonds
- 50g caster sugar
- A few drops of almond essence
- 150g butter diced
To decorate
- 25g whole blanched almonds halved
- Two glace cherries, cut into small pieces
- Extra caster sugar, for sprinkling
Men make history and not the other way around, in periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurred when courageous, skilful leaders seized the opportunity to change things for the better.
– Harry S. Truman
Preparation:
- Put the flour, ground almonds, sugar and almond essence in a mixing bowl or a food processor, add the butter and rub in with your fingertips or process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
- Squeeze the mixture together with your hands to form a ball, knead lightly then roll out on a lightly floured surface until 1 cm thick, stamp out 6 cm circles using a fluted round biscuit cutter, transfer to an ungreased baking sheet. Rekeand the trimmings and continue rolling and stamping out until all the mixture has been used.
- Prick each shortbread biscuit four times with a fork to make a cross shape then add an almond half to the space between each fork mark, decorate the centre with a small piece of glace cherry. Sprinkle with a little extra caster sugar and bake in a preheated oven, set timer for about 15 minutes until pale golden.
- Loosen the biscuits and leave to cool on the baking sheet or transfer to a rack if preferred.
