Fennel Shortbread: The Perfect Gift
I worked as a technician at KQED in San Francisco for decades. I made shortbread at Christmas every year and took one pan to each department, where it sat momentarily with Hanukkah candles, Solstice boughs and the latest news copy. Then wedge by wedge it vanished. People love it. Now the shortbreads go to the people of our neighborhood.
The recipe is a hybrid of Scottish tradition both Christian and Devic — the original recipe is from Findhorn — and the California love of fennel:
1 Tablespoonful dry fennel seeds
6 cups (300 g) flour
2 cup (four sticks or 1 pound; 480 g) butter
1 cup (100g) sugar
Mix them thoroughly, cutting in the butter until it is small. If you are using a mixer (much easier!) add the fennel seeds last. Divide the crumbly dough into five 8-inch round pans. Press it down thoroughly.
Bake in a preheated 325 degree F. (gas mark 3; 163 C) oven for 30–35 minutes or so. Watch it then, until it starts to brown about the edges. It burns easily. Take it from the oven. Then immediately score each cake through to the bottom, into eight wedges. You have to do this while it is still very hot because it will soon become both hard and easily-breakable. When it has cooled, cover the pan with a plastic lid.
It is an easy recipe. Once you have the mixer going, it is just as easy to keep going. This year we made thirty pans of shortbread in just over three hours. This makes a perfect gift for the people you are close to and acquaintances alike. It can become a tradition and a uniter.
I got the shortbread recipe (but not the addition of fennel — that is ours) from:
Sherman, Kaye Lynn
*The Findhorn Family Cook Book*
Boulder CO: Shambala 1982
