Sweet treats

Lemon shortbread biscuit recipe

Makes roughly 24 biscuits
Print Recipe

Nostalgic, comforting and beautifully buttery, there are few things that accompany a cup of tea quite like these zesty lemon shortbread biscuits from Not Just a Pretty Plate. For a quick seasonal pudding, they’re also lovely served after supper with some lightly roasted rhubarb and a dollop of crème fraîche.

Decorate your gorgeous lemon shortbread recipe with edible flowers. Bake in small batches so you can add your pressed flowers while the shortbread is still hot from the oven. We recommend four biscuits at five minute intervals. Adding the flowers this way retains their colour and helps them stick to the buiscuits. If you press them into the dough before baking, the flowers discolour, which ruins the aesthetic.

Edible flowers are an easy way to add colour without an additive in sight. If you don’t have any seasonal wildflowers to hand in your garden, you can easily find bright blooms online. Using a few hefty hardback books and some tissue paper, it’s super easy to add a touch of the Great British countryside to your next culinary delight. Find out more about preparing edible flowers.

To recreate the design of these buiscuits, use a selection of the following edibles:

  • Forget-me-nots (light blue)
  • Borage (deep blue)
  • Gorse (yellow)
  • Knapweed (deep purple)
  • Lady’s smock (pale purple)

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Ingredients

  • 250g cold butter, cubed
  • 250g plain flour
  • 125g caster sugar
  • 125g semolina or ground almonds
  • 1 lemon, zest

Method

  1. Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
  2. Measure the ingredients into a food processor and pulse until thoroughly combined. This can also be done by hand, rubbing the butter into the flour to create breadcrumbs, then stirring in the other ingredients, working together gently to form a ball. Try not to handle too much as this will develop the gluten in the flour and lead to a tougher biscuit.
  3. Wrap your dough in clingfilm and pop into the fridge for half an hour.
  4. Remove from the fridge, then roll the chilled dough on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of roughly 2cm. Cut into 6cm rounds using a cutter or an upside-down glass.
  5. Place onto the prepared baking tray and bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.