I don’t think you can really go wrong when you’re cooking with coffee, but when you add copious amounts of butter, chocolate and sugar it just gets even better!
Ingredients – Makes about 20
30ml of freshly made espresso (or a teaspoon of good instant coffee dissolved in 2 tablespoons of boiling water)
250g of unsalted butter at room temperature cut up into chunks
125g of icing sugar
A small amount of caster sugar to sprinkle on top of the cooked shortbread
½ teaspoon of vanilla extract (Use real extract not “vanilla flavouring”)
300g of plain flour
200g bar of cold whole hazelnut chocolate chopped into small pieces (or just get some chocolate and add some chopped hazelnuts)
Method
Get your espresso ready, whilst you’re at it why not just make yourself a nice coffee to drink anyway?
Place the butter and icing sugar in a mixing bowl and beat for 3 or 4 minutes on a medium speed until smooth.
Add the vanilla extract and espresso, turn the mixer speed down to low and add the flour.
As soon as the flour has been incorporated into the mixture turn off the mixer.
Add the chopped chocolate with hazelnuts and fold in with a spatula.
Resist the temptation to eat the mixture right now, although it is pretty tasty at this stage!
Line a half inch deep baking tray with cling film, you might want to use a little butter to stick the cling film to the tray.
Spoon the mixture onto the tray and either flatten with a spatula or a rolling pin.
Cover the tray of shortbread with more cling film and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
Heat your oven to 160C (I’ve got a fan oven).
Remove the shortbread from the fridge, turn out onto a board and discard the cling film.
Cut up into 2 inch squares and place onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.
Bake in the centre of the oven for 18-20 minutes, you don’t want to brown the shortbread so keep an eye on it.
Remove from the oven and place on a rack, dust with a little caster sugar and allow to cool (really, they’re hot, give them at least a minute!).
Nom!