Sunday 31 August 2008

Ginger topped shortbread fingers

This recipe has been on my “to bake” list for a while and I finally got round to making it this week. I was attracted to the recipe as it used lots of my favourite components but in a novel way.

Shortbread biscuits can do little wrong in my eyes but I’d never seen a recipe for ginger shortbread before – that’s what forms the base here:


I think I must have bored everyone on the planet with my love of golden syrup – here it’s used to make a sticky ginger topping for the shortbread. Divine! The topping is so shiny you can see my camera flash in it:


Cut the biscuit into fingers; this is best done when the biscuits have cooled a little but haven’ t totally firmed up:


I think these biscuits look rather stylish when finished and it belies just how easy they are to make.


The shortbread has a lovely open texture; I paused my eating long enough to snap this picture:


Ingredients:
For the biscuit base:
225g plain flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
85g golden caster sugar
175g unsalted butter

For the ginger topping:
55g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup
2 tablespoons icing sugar
1 teaspoon ground ginger

Optional: white glace icing
2 tablespoons icing sugar
water (add tiny drops at a time)

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Grease and line a 28cm x 18cm tin (the sort of tin you would use for traybakes). I strongly recommend lining the tin as it makes it easier to remove the biscuits.
- Put the flour, ginger, and caster sugar in a bowl and mix together.
- Rub in the butter until the mixture starts to form biscuity clumps.
- Press the mixture into the tin and level.
- Bake for 40 minutes or until the shortbread is lightly browned. Mine took exactly 40 minutes.
- About 5 minutes before the biscuit base is baked, start making the topping. This is because you want to be able to pour the topping over the straight-from-the-oven shortbread base.
- Melt the butter and golden syrup in a small saucepan. Keep the heat low as you do not want to burn the butter.
- Stir in the icing sugar and ginger and ensure the mixture is smooth, glossy and lump free.
- Take the shortbread from the oven and pour the topping over straight away. Spread with a knife to ensure the topping is evenly distributed.
- Leave to cool slightly i.e. approximately 30 minutes, and then cut into 16 fingers. This is easiest when the biscuit base has firmed up a bit but is not hard.
- If you wish to add some white icing swirls simply mix together the icing sugar and water until you have a thick white icing. Either pipe or spoon over the ginger fingers.
- Leave to cool completely. I left the fingers in the tin until I served them.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

4 comments:

trash said...

Mmmmm... but how gingery were they? Not a huge fan of ginger in this context (but strangely like ginger snaps?!) so wonder how they would go with just golden syrup (trivia: cocky's joy to use an old-fashioned Australian phrase, cocky being a slang phrase for a farm worker)or some other mix???

The Caked Crusader said...

Hi

They were quite gingery. I think you could either leave the shortbread without any topping or just maybe put some white glace icing on.
I am possibly the wrong person to ask if just golden syrup would be ok, as I cannot think of anything that it wouldn't taste good on!

The Caked Crusader

Llamabean said...

Oh Good Heavens, they both sound insanely good, definitely going into my baking queue as soon as I can!
Thank you for sharing.

Rosie said...

Amazing shortbread fingers with wonderful ginger mmmmmmm... I know this needs to go on my bake list to do now :) Thanks for sharing C.C.

Rosie x