This ginger shortbread is a must. It is adapted (very slightly) from Mary Berry’s Stem Ginger Shortbread recipe which is one of my favourite Mary recipes! The only change I made was to add a little more stem ginger, because I LOVE the stuff. Thank you Mary for such a fab recipe!
Like most traditional recipes there is much discussion and gnashing of teeth over the ingredients that should be used. I learnt to make shortbread with just three ingredients – butter, flour and sugar. At least that is my recollection of the shortbread that I used to make at school. Some recipes call for the addition of rice flour or ground rice, some for cornflour and some for finely ground semolina. I used the latter as Mary told me to do so 
and I love the consistency it gives. A real crunch but with no grittiness. All recipes call for butter to be used. You can’t use margarine for shortbread, that is a real no no. I used salted butter, as I believe that the salt helps bring out the buttery flavour (although that subtle flavour is overpowered somewhat when you add stem ginger to the mix).
I added more stem ginger to this recipe than Mary suggested as I love it so much. Make sure, when you remove the balls of stem ginger from the syrup, that you pat them dry thoroughly before chopping as too much additional moisture in the dough will change the texture.
Although I have not done so myself, I understand that these shortbread biscuits freeze very well. Place the cooked, cooled shortbread in the freezer on the day of baking. When you want to serve them, take them out and leave them to defrost and come to room temperature, Or you could do what Mary suggests and pop them, still frozen, into a warm oven for 10 minutes to ‘refresh’!
I hope you enjoy this recipe. I did
Ginger Shortbread
- Prep Time: 30m
- Cook Time: 40m
- Total Time: 1h 10m
- Yield: 30 cookies
- Category: Bars & Traybakes, Biscuits & Cookies
Ingredients
- 7 stem ginger balls (chopped)
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour (225g)
- 1 cup butter (225g)
- 1/2 cup caster sugar (100g)
- 2/3 cup semolina (100g)
- 2 tablespoons demerara sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325F / 160C / 140C fan.
- Dry the balls of stem ginger on kitchen roll and then chop into small pieces. Set aside.
- Place the flour, butter, sugar and semolina into a food processor and pulse until the dough comes together. It will become a crumbly dough.
- Tip out onto a lightly floured work surface. Scatter the chopped stem ginger onto the dough and work it in until it is distributed throughout the dough.
- Place the dough into a 9 by 13 inch tin and press down firmly with the back of a spoon. Sprinkle the demerara sugar on top of the dough.
- Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for 35 - 40 minutes or until the shortbread is golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes before using a sharp knife to cut the shortbread into fingers (or if you'd prefer triangles).
- Carefully remove the shortbread fingers from the tin straight away and place on a wire rack to cool.
- The biscuits will keep for 3 - 4 days in a airtight container.
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