A Highly Variable X Recipe: A Highly Variable Shortbread Recipe

The term is back! Help yourself to some work. Don’t be shy- there’s plenty. Well, it’s still early, and you probably have a bit of time… This time is short. Enjoy it. This bread is also short. Enjoy it too.

To make shortbread, you need five things. You can manage that, can’t you? They are: butter, margarine, sugar, an egg, and flour. If you don’t have those, it’s the beginning of term! Did you eat all of your food already? Seriously, those are pretty staple foods. If you don’t have those, you’re pretty screwed. Go out and buy some; I’ll wait.

So: the butter and margarine. Mix them together- a 50:50 ratio is safe, but messing around with it is encouraged. More butter makes the shortbread slightly harder, while more margarine makes it more crumbly. Whichever you choose, make sure the margarine and butter are blended. Then add white sugar; the ratio of sugar to the butter/margarine mixture should be about 1:2. Again- play around with it, and quantities don’t matter. Make a lot of cookies. Make more than nine thousand. You got the ingredients!

Stir up the sugar, butter/margarine, and the egg. One egg, unless you are making a truly massive number of cookies. Make sure this whole glob is well and truly scrambled. Then, add flour. Add little bits of flour as you mix until the dough is at the right consistency- this occurs when you can shape it into little balls.
If you want to make cookies, shape it into cookie shapes, not balls. These cookies don’t spread much in the oven. You can make other shapes, or large shapes, but those are trickier to bake- try cookies first so you get the feel for things. Place your cookies on a cookie tray and bake at 300°F until they start to turn brown around the edges. Be careful with these- it is very easy to burn them.

Now, what are these plain-looking things good for, you ask? Well, you can eat them by themselves, but that’s boring. Suggestions:

1. Classic strawberries and cream. That’s what shortbread was made for! Go all out, and wear a bonnet and a petticoat, while reciting nursery rhymes.
2. Drizzle chocolate on top of a bit of either ice cream or whipped cream. Speak in a bad French accent and take a 50% bourgeoisie bonus. Ooh la la!
3. Dip them in chocolate. This can be followed by dipping in sprinkles of your choice.
4. Crumble, and use as a base for a cheesecake.
5. Nibble on them while studying- you’ll be too busy to care about the blatant lack in self-indulgence.