Melting Moments

 

Melt in the mouth shortbread with a lemon centre........delicious!

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The wonderfully high butter content of these shortbreads makes them an ideal Winter treat. Unfortunately they are not so good for baking in the height of Summer.

 

Ingredients

Shortbread

100 g Besan flour

285 g Butter (chopped & cold)

140 g Maize starch

200 Potato starch

40 g Icing sugar

2 tsp Vanilla extract

Extra maize starch

Icing

85 g Butter (softened)

1/2 Lemon (zest & juice) No more than 35 mls

250 g Icing sugar (sifted)

Extra icing sugar for dusting

 

Method

Thermomix

Put besan flour, maize starch & potato starch into the TM bowl.

Mix for 7 secs on speed 7.

Remove from TM bowl and set aside in another container.

Put the butter, icing sugar & vanilla extract into the TM bowl.

Mix for 30 sec at speed 4.

Ensure all ingredients are incorporated.

Add flour mix to TM bowl.

Mix for 20 sec on speed 2. 

After the 20 sec the mix should just come together as a dough. Do not mix for longer in the Thermomix.

Take dough out of TM bowl and put it into the container you used to store the flour & starch mix.

Stand Mixer 

Sift & mix together the besan flour, maize starch & potato.

Cream together the butter, icing sugar & vanilla extract.

Add to the creamed mixture the flour mix.

On a low speed mix together all ingredients until the dough just comes together.

Rolling out the dough

Put the dough on a sheet of baking paper. Bring it together with your hands. If you need to, kneed the dough to incorporate any remaining flour. If the dough is sticky add a little of the extra maize starch to it. Kneed the dough to incorporate the extra maize starch. The dough should be ready to roll out.

Place dough between two sheets of baking paper. To ensure the shortbread is even in thickness follow this tip. Find four placements (dinner setting) place two of them on top of each other on either side of the dough (Two of my placemats are 8 mm high). The placemats can be on top of or underneath the pieces of baking paper. I find it easier to work with the dough when it is between two sheets of baking paper. When rolling out the dough ensure the rolling pin is wide enough to span the dough and part of the two top placemats. My rolling pin is large – 61 cm from handle to handle. Initially when rolling the pin may not necessarily rest on the placemats, however, when the dough is the same thickness as the placemats it will. At this stage the dough should be all the same thickness. Put the dough (still in between the baking paper) onto a flat tray and put it into the fridge for approximately 30 mins.

Cutting & Cooking

Turn the oven on to 140o C.

Line 2 trays with baking paper.

Bring out the cold dough. Gently lift off the top piece of baking paper, put it back down on the dough. Holding on to both sheets of baking paper on both sides of the dough gently flip the dough over. Lift off the top piece of baking paper - do not discard. 

Using a cutter of your choice cut out the shortbread and place them on a baking tray. For the Melting Moments pictured above I used a round cutter with a 48 mm diameter (~ 1 7/8 of an inch). When you have cut out as many shapes as possible bring the dough together and roll it out again between the two sheets of baking paper. Continue cutting out shapes in the newly rolled dough. If the dough is cold enough the shapes will still be easy to pick up & transfer to the baking tray. If not put the dough back into the fridge for ~ 5 mins. Repeat until you can't cut out any more shapes.

The length of time required to bake the shortbread will depend on the size of the cutter you have used & your oven. The cutter I used (48 mm diameter) produced 39 shortbread that were ~ 19 - 20 g each. I baked these for 35 mins turning the trays halfway through baking.

******DO NOT EAT THE RAW DOUGH******

the besan flour makes it taste awful

Allow the shortbread to cool completely before starting the icing.

Making the Icing

Cream together the softened butter & 1/3 of the sifted icing sugar. 

When the mixture is light & fluffy stop the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl and add in another 1/3 of the icing sugar. 

Continue creaming the butter & icing sugar.

When the mixture is light & fluffy add the lemon zest & ~ 1/3 of the lemon juice.

Continue creaming the mixture.

When the lemon juice has been fully incorporated, stop the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl and add in the last of the icing sugar.

Continue creaming the mixture.

Add in another 1/3 of the lemon juice.

Continue creaming the mixture.

Stop the mixer & taste a little of the icing. Is it sufficiently lemony? If not gradually add the remaining lemon juice in between mixing. Too much lemon juice will split the icing so don't add any more than the 35 mls.

Transfer the icing to a piping bag with a star nozzle. For the Melting Moments pictured above I used a size 13 star nozzle.

Flip 1/2 of the shortbreads over. Pipe some of the icing on to the upturned shortbreads. Start piping from the middle & keep the piping bag in that position. The amount you pipe will be a bit of a trial & error to start with. As a guideline pipe enough so that the points of the icing are ~ 5 mm away from the edge of the biscuit.

Put the remaining shortbreads on top by gently pressing them down on to the icing. The icing will move out to the edges of the shortbread.

This is when you need to have a little patience - the Melting Moments are at their best when the icing has set. To hasten setting transfer the Melting Moments to an airtight container and put them in the fridge.

Before serving dust icing sugar over the top.