Scottish Shortbread & Gunpowder Tea

National Park Service

Historic shortbread recipe.

From A New and Easy Method of Cookery by Elizabeth Cleveland, 1755

Looking through original cookbooks, the recipes for shortbread can be a bit different than what we are used to enjoying today. Still rich with butter, early shortbread contained nuts and dried fruits (called sweetmeats), and much of the time, caraway seeds. The other big difference is it is truly being treated as a “short” bread, as it utilizes the barm (from the beermaking process) as a leavening agent. As we weren’t able to acquire proper period barm for this particular recipe, we found a barm substitute with the same results. That is included here as well.

Here is the modern translation of the recipe – enjoy!

The tasty shortbread results to be enjoyed by all!

National Park Service/Sandi MD

Ingedients

• 3 to 3 ¼ cup four
• ¼ cup of sugar
• 3 sticks butter
• Barm (½ c. water, 1 heaping tbsp. flour, ¼ - ½ tsp. instant yeast. Mix together and let sit for about 8 hours prior to making the shortbread.)
• Sweet meats**

Directions

Melt the butter and remove from heat, cool to lukewarm and then add the barm to the butter. Mix the 3 cups of flour and sweetmeats in a medium bowl. Mix in the sugar then add the butter/barm mixture. Stir until combined. If the dough is not firm enough to roll out, add in another 1/4 cup of flour. Flour a board and roll the dough out to about 1/4 to 3/8 inch thick. Cut into desired shapes. Bake at 350” for about 15-20 minutes or until lightly golden brown around the edges.

**Notes from Park VIP Sandi

1. I used ¼ cup of candied orange peel, ¼ cup candied lemon peel, 1/3 cup currants, about 1 tablespoonful of caraway seeds.
2. Plump the currants in hot water for about 20 minutes, drain well before adding to the dry ingredients.
3. I like to chill the dough while the oven preheats. I also only roll out half at a time so the dough doesn’t get too soft.
4. I used a 2 inch round cookie cutter and got about 48 cookies from the batch.

Make Your Tea

Gunpowder tea is one of the many popular teas of the 18^th century. Named for the appearance of the leaves when they are dried and rolled, this Asian tea was enjoyed throughout the colonies. Because they unfurl in hot water, many modern companies sell the tea in bags as not to clog the teapot or messy your cup. We chose to share gunpowder tea to highlight St. Barbara’s Day, the patron saint celebration of artillerymen.

Special thanks to Moore's Creek NB VIP Sandi for her updated and revised conversions for this recipe!!!

Open Transcript 

Transcript

*violin music throughout*

Duration:

2 minutes, 39 seconds

Shortbread and other decadent treats were only saved for special occasions. In the following video, you can learn how to make Scottish shortbread and tea.