Baking at midnight on the eve of Christmas eve!

Well it's the 23rd today well it just clicked to midnight so now it's Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas Eve bloggers, why am I up so late? Well I have meringues baking in the oven (oh I really hope they turn out!!) So far tonight I have also baked christmas star shortbread biscuits & handcrafter some Christmas cards for Trents family (we are seeing them, well today - Christmas Eve!)... :) Then tonight (like christmas eve night) I am attempting to bake a white chocolate christmas tree shaped mudcake!... I'll let you know how that goes. Well in the spirit of Christmas & giving/sharing I thought I would give (share) with you my shortbread recipe (it's pretty standard)
Christmas Shortbread -
You will need:

• 175g or 1 1/2 cups of  plain (all purpose) flour
• 125g or 3/4 cup of rice flour (it's in the baking aisle of the supermarker so I discovered today!)
• 200g unsalted butter, softenend
• 4 tablespoons of caster (super fine) sugar
• extra caster sugar for sprinkling on the biscuits when they are baked

Preheat your oven to 190 degress celcius or 375degrees farenheit.
Grease/lay baking paper on the trays you are using.
In a separate bowl sift the two kinds of flour together  add a pinch of salt to the bowl.

In your mixing bowl cream your butter and sugar together until light & fluffy,

 then fold through the sifted flour mixture until combine. (I do this all by my mix master).


Lay out baking paper on a bench/table and put the dough onto the paper. Roll out flat with a rolling pin (I don't have one, I find my hands work just as well pressing it out). Now with a cookie cutter cut out shapes!! (If you don't want to do this, you can make it in a slice tray and just pre-cut little squares into the dough every 3cm). I just think stars look pretty!

Bake for 5 minutes, then reduce oven temerature to 150degrees celcius or 300degrees farenheit & cook for a further 15-20 minute or until shortbread is a light golden colour.

Now after you take them out of the oven you can lightly sprinkle caster sugar over the warm biscuits or you could sprinkle very fine lemon zest over the top (if using lemon zest bake for a further 5 minutes).
This makes about 50 or so stars...

Let me know if you attempt this & how it turns out ok
Enjoy. x

Oh and by the way heck yeah my meringues turned out damn awesome. Probably not perfect but pretty damn close!!

 Before they went in the oven (3 big trays of meringues!!)

In the oven..

The finished product!! So damn proud!

Ok well I am off now to try & get some sleep & to check on Trent (he has come down with a cold/flu) We are hoping it's gone by Christmas! If you want my meringue recipe just let me know & I'll do a blog on that!!
Have a great Christmas Eve guys...

I love you all. x

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