Lorraine Pascale Dream Like Shortbread

Has anyone watched the Great British Bake Off for Comic relief this week. I have always loved cooking, especially baking & it is great to see the nation so enthused with the baking bug. 

The show is addictive and I can't quite put my finger on why? for me one of the reasons is the great presenting duo of Mary Berry & Paul Hollywood, don't you just love Paul Hollywoods eyes, how lovely is to the competitors & he can bake he ticks all the boxes.

On Monday the first challenge was Shortbread which is one of my favourites, so this afternoon after baking cookies for Abi I decided to make some using the Lorraine Pascale Dreamlike Shortbread.

Ingredients

• 130g/4½oz butter, softened
• 60g/2½oz caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• 130g/4½oz plain flour ( substitute up to 30g flour for custard powder for a creamier taste )
• 60g/2½oz rice flour
• pinch salt

Preparation method

1. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until pale and fluffy. Add the plain flour, rice flour and salt, and stir well until the mixture is smooth and uniform. (I find it easiest to keep pressing the mixture against the side of the bowl to mix it.)
2. Bring the mixture together and press into a 20cm/8in loose-bottomed cake tin, smoothing it with the back of a spoon. Crimp the edges by pressing with the tips of two fingers, then score into eight pieces with a knife and prick each triangle three times with a fork. Put in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up.
3. Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3.
4. Remove the shortbread from the fridge and bake in the oven for 30–35 minutes, or until pale golden-brown.
5. Remove the shortbread from the oven and sprinkle over some caster sugar. Leave to 
   cool in the tin for a few minutes before removing it from the tin and cooling on a wire rack.
   
   
   When I bake this recipe I usually make individual biscuits, to do this I layout a sheet of cling film & roll the dough into a sausage & wrap loosely in the cling film and roll out the sausage and chill for 20 minutes.
   
   
   After listening to some of Mary Berrys comments she was talking about adding some cornflour, so today when I was making the shortbread I substituted 30g of the flour for 30g Custard Powder. This gave a creamier vanilla taste with the same light texture.