Scottish Highland-Style Shortbread (Aran Milis Àrdchreige)

This Highland variant of Scottish shortbread adds a speckle of toasted oats for extra heft and chew.

Scottish shortbread is a coveted treat for any visitor to Scotland. Proper shortbread is a very simple recipe with no bells and whistles. The butter does most of the heavy lifting, and there’s no vanilla to hide behind either. I use cornflour in this recipe, though some Scots will insist on rice flour. This recipe also picks up some historic details from the last century, particularly in sort of sugar used. Sugar in the last few centuries wasn’t as refined as the white sort we get now, and it would often have traces of flavourful molasses that made the sugar taste…like sugar! In this recipe I capture that essence with a small addition of brown sugar. The highland style shortbread often uses a mixture of oats and wheat flour, as wheat would struggle to ripen in the colder climate of Northern Scotland. Feel encouraged to explore other regional varieties of shortbread too, such as Ayrshire-style shortbread [GET THE RECIPE] which adds eggs and cream, and the classic style which is the pure essence of Scottish shortbread [GET THE RECIPE] which adds milled, toasted oats. Wonderful with a hot cup of tea. Let’s go!