Mary Berry Shortbread Recipe

This Mary Berry shortbread recipe is her Very Best Shortbread from the Baking Bible, made with plain flour, semolina, butter and caster sugar. And it cuts into 30 fingers at about 110 calories each, taking about 1 hour 20 minutes with chilling.

Mary says “for a really good shortbread it is essential to use butter”, and she adds semolina “to give the shortbread crunch”. Then demerara goes over the top straight from the oven, which her Classic book says “gives it a nice crunch”.

When you cut it makes or breaks this shortbread, because Mary slices it a few minutes out of the oven, while still warm. And lift the fingers out straight away, since her Classic tip warns that shortbread left in the tin sticks to it.

Mary Berry Shortbread

Recipe by Pinch Perfect

0.0 from 0 votes

Course: Dessert, SnackCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy

Servings

30

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

35

minutes

Calories

110

kcal

Total time

1

hour 

20

minutes

Flour and semolina are rubbed together with butter and sugar, then pressed into a traybake tin and chilled until firm. So it bakes slowly at a low heat until barely coloured, with optional flaked almonds scattered on before it goes in.

Ingredients

• For the shortbread:

• 225g (8oz) plain flour

• 100g (4oz) semolina

• 225g (8oz) butter, plus extra for greasing

• 100g (4oz) caster sugar

• To finish:

• 50g (2oz) flaked almonds (optional)

• 25g (1oz) demerara sugar, for dusting

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Directions

• Prepare the tin: Lightly grease a 30 x 23cm (12 x 9in) traybake or roasting tin.
• Make the dough: Mix the flour and semolina in a bowl or food processor. Then add the butter and caster sugar and rub together with your fingertips until the mixture is just beginning to bind. Knead lightly until it forms a smooth dough.
• Press and chill: Press the dough into the tin and level it with the back of a spatula or palette knife, so it is evenly spread. Then prick all over with a fork, scatter over the flaked almonds if using and chill until firm.
• Heat the oven: Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 160°C/Fan 140°C/Gas 3.
• Bake: Bake for about 35 minutes, or until a very pale golden brown. Then sprinkle with the demerara sugar.
• Cut and cool: Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes, then cut into 30 fingers. Then lift them out carefully with a palette knife and finish cooling on a wire rack. And store them in an airtight tin.

FAQs

Do you need semolina in shortbread, or can you use cornflour?

No, because Mary says cornflour or ground rice can replace the semolina in both the Baking Bible and the Ultimate Cake Book. And her Cookery Course explains the difference, since semolina or ground rice gives “a subtle, gritty consistency” while cornflour makes it smoother.

That book also says the dough binds together more easily if the butter is soft rather than straight from the fridge.

How long should shortbread bake, and how do you know it’s done?

Her bake times vary, from 35 minutes for this tray to 40 in Classic and 50 in the 2023 US edition, which calls them cookies. So go by colour rather than the clock, and take it out once it is only very pale golden.

Then check underneath as well, because her Cookery Course says the base should be “a light biscuit colour” too. And if the underside isn’t pale gold, her Baking Bible note on Bishop’s Fingers says to give it another 5 to 10 minutes.

How long does homemade shortbread keep, and can you freeze it?

Her AGA Classic Scottish Shortbread keeps in an airtight container for up to a week and freezes for up to 2 months. And in Foolproof she stores them between layers of kitchen paper, so they don’t stick together.

To serve from frozen, Foolproof says to refresh the shortbread in a moderate oven for about 10 minutes, with no need to defrost. But if you add glacé cherries, apricots or sultanas, Mary says to eat it on the day, because the fruit soon makes it soggy.

How do you make lemon, orange or ginger shortbread?

For orange shortbread, the Baking Bible simply adds the finely grated zest of one large orange to the dough. And her Simple Comforts lemon shortbread adds a small lemon’s zest to a thinner batch, baked at 180°C/160°C fan for 15 to 20 minutes. Then Mary Berry Cooks stirs 50g each of dried cranberries and white chocolate chips into a smaller batch shaped as a round.

She sandwiches those lemon pieces with whipped cream, Greek yoghurt, raspberries and 2 tablespoons of lemon curd. Then for ginger shortbread, Foolproof kneads 5 chopped balls of stem ginger into this dough, and her chocolate ginger flapjacks use stem ginger too.

How many calories are in Mary Berry shortbread?

By my maths this tray comes to about 3,350 calories without the almonds, so each of the 30 fingers is roughly 110. But her round versions cut into bigger pieces, at 205 calories a slice in the Cookery Course and 233 a wedge in the Complete Cookbook.

And for something far richer on a similar base, I work out her millionaire shortbread at about 300 calories a square.