Comments on: Chocolate swirl shortbread on the second attempt

By: Cat

Cat — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:45:05 +0000

I make them with Maya gold chopped up into tiny chunks, and rather than roll out the chocolate dough I just flatten it then squish it out on the rolled-out plain dough using my fingers. It works much better that way. Then once it’s rolled I wrap it tightly in greaseproof paper and pop it back in the fridge for a good hour – it means it slices so much easier and looks better too.

And yes they are blimmin gorgeous! :D well worth persevering with, I had issues at first but by tweaking as above it’s now my standby easy recipe.

By: helen

helen — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:14:49 +0000

it’s good! although I reckon the chocolate bits through the middle are pretty crucial too :o)

By: Nicky

Nicky — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:58:24 +0000

Mmmmmm I love shortbread! I have never tried it with cocoa, but it is never too late!

By: helen

helen — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:13:22 +0000

Also dougal somewhere forgets to mention that these are nevertheless blimen gorgeous!

By: helen

helen — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:12:28 +0000

I agree regarding the size of choccy bits. Means the chocolate hit is just a little too concentrated in the centre- a degree more distribution would be good.

My impression is that the sizings given for chopping things in that book are a bit awry. I made the brazil nut chocolate chip cookies and chopped the brazil nuts, to my mind, as the recipe required. I then tried to roll the biscuit mix out to the stipulated thickness. But the nuts were too big! It simply wasn’t possible to roll thin enough with great clods of brazil nut sticking up.

I almost said something to this effect to you when I saw your chopped chocolate but a)I didn’t want to interfere (and in any case I hadn’t read the recipe) and b)I supposed that this time the recipe might have been right. I was wrong, clearly!