Maple Shortbread Biscuits

I continue to be drawn to recipes which are quick and easy to make and which, most importantly, taste delicious. The dough for these biscuits can be made and in the oven baking in no time at all. They are wonderful to eat on their own but also make a lovely accompaniment to ice-cream and other creamy desserts such as crème brûlée or panna cotta.

These biscuits are essentially shortbread, but rather than using sugar, maple syrup is used in its place. This creates a softer than normal dough and as such, I find that it is easier to pipe out individual biscuits rather than try to form them using my hands or stamping out individual biscuits. The smell of warm maple syrup as the biscuits cook is divine, being sweetly smoky with a hint of butterscotch.

 

The anticipation whilst waiting for the biscuits to come out of the oven is almost unbearable.  It is recommended that the biscuits are eaten after they have cooled, but I will admit that is impossible to stop yourself from trying one out as soon as they emerge from being baked.

My daughter Emma and her cousins loved these biscuits and they were quickly wolfed down! The finished biscuits could be dipped in a little dark chocolate if liked but I actually prefer them as they are and unadorned as I think that the maple syrup adds a complexity of flavour that does not require the addition of chocolate.

These biscuits may contain very few ingredients, but they are definitely more than the sum of their parts in taste terms!

Ingredients:

125g butter, softened

80ml maple syrup

½ tsp vanilla paste
110g plain flour
35g cornflour

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4.  Line a large baking tray with non-stick baking parchment.
2. Place the butter, maple syrup and vanilla paste into a mixing bowl, and using a hand-held electric mixer, beat together until light and fluffy. Sieve the flour and into the bowl and using a wooden spoon work into the creamed butter mixture, making sure that it is fully incorporated.
3. Spoon the mixture into a disposable piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle. Pipe out individual 24 biscuits onto to the parchment-lined baking tray, leaving space between each biscuit. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes until a light golden colour. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Makes 24.