Quick and easy air fryer shortbread recipe

A seasonal classic, this recipe from Air Fryer Easy Everyday couldn’t be more simple.

I love shortbread. As a kid, every Christmas my parents’ Scottish bookkeeper would gift us some shortbread. I thought it was the nicest treat ever. As a grownup, I learnt it was ridiculously easy to make and could be used in many recipes.

Let me first show you our master recipe for Scottish shortbread and then how to transform it into chocolate orange shortbread and strawberries and cream shortbread stacks.

Three-ingredient air fryer shortbread recipe

Ingredients

• 240g/1¾ cups plain/all purpose flour
• 75g/6 Tbsp granulated sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• 175g/¾ cup unsalted butter

Method

• Put the flour, sugar and butter in a mixing bowl. Use your fingertips to rub the fat into the flour, continuing until big lumps form, then bring the mixture together into a dough. The high fat content means that it forms into a dough easily; try not to overhandle the dough, because the butter will get too melty.
• Place the dough into a 20cm/8 inch round silicone cake pan and press it down, so that it creates an even disc in the base of the silicone pan. Use a fork to crimp around the edge, like traditional shortbread and score the top to divide it into 8 wedges. Doing so now will create the lines to slice again when cooked and makes it much easier.
• Place the silicone pan in the air fryer basket, set the temperature to 150C/300F and cook for 20 minutes. Increase the temperature to 180C/360F and cook for a further 15 minutes until light golden.
• Remove the silicone pan from the air fryer and sprinkle the shortbread with extra sugar. Allow to rest before peeling away from the silicone. Use the original cuts as your guide to slice into eight “petticoat tails” before serving.
• Smaller shortbreads: As this classic shortbread won’t fit the air fryer dual drawers or into a small air fryer, we recommend using a cookie cutter and making individual shortbread rounds instead. You can follow our recipe on page 217 and either enjoy as plain cookies or transform it into a strawberry and cream dessert.

Tips

• We find that the easiest way to press our shortbread dough down firmly into the tin is to use a potato masher.
• Hot chocolate orange shortbread: This is our favourite way to make shortbread and a chocolaty upgrade of traditional Scottish shortbread. Make as above, but as you add the main ingredients to the bowl, add an extra 28g/1oz/3 tablespoons plain/all-purpose flour, 60g/2oz/½ cup hot chocolate powder, and the finely grated zest of a medium orange, plus 2 tablespoons of the orange juice.

This article was first published by the NZ Herald and is republished here with permission.