Cheryl bakes...chocolate chip shortbread!

My first baking post-yay! Now, I am not the best cook by any stretch of the imagination, as I have mentioned in previous posts Michael is an amazing cook so I leave the dinners to him! However I really love baking cakes and biscuits, it is a great way to keep my mind focused. Today I made some chocolate chip shortbread bunny biscuits and I thought I would share how I made it with you all so maybe one of you could re-create them! When making cakes, I use margarine instead of butter purely because it's healthier and easier to mix-you may sacrifice a little on the taste but I have always found that cakes and biscuits still taste lovely with margarine.

Firstly I created a basic shortbread mix of plain flour (sifted), caster sugar and about 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder and salt. I then added 60g of maragine (or of course you can use butter. Shortbread mixes vary and some say mix the sugar and butter first and then add to the rest of the ingredients but I did it slightly differently here.

 

After adding the margarine, I used a fork to mix it in with the mixture until it created a dough. This took about 5 minutes or so and a lot of elbow grease! I also added in about 3 teaspoons of water along the way and when I felt the dough was a bit sticky, I just added some flour into the dough and kneeded it in.

So once I did this, I wanted to add in something to the shortbread mix to make it taste a little bit more exciting! I didn't have chocolate chips so I broke up a small easter egg into tiny bits and kneeded this in. I added a bit more flour to the dough-then floured a chopping board and using a rolling pin (covered in a bit of flour to avoid stickage!) rolled out the dough. 

I then used some cheapie Easter cutouts (bunnies etc) and used the dough to create the moulds. I didn't have greaseproof paper so I put the pre-cooked bunnies on some foil on a baking tray and greased the foil with some margarine-they didn't stick so it seemed to work well! 

I cooked the shortbread on Gas Mark 3 and aimed for 30 minutes-checking the biscuits a few times and turning the tray around. After about 25 minutes they were golden brown and well cooked so out they came! I left them to cool for 10 minutes, took them off the foil and voila! They are a really nice crunchy shortbread however think it lacked a bit of sweetness-more sugar next time! They are really cute though and will no doubt be eaten by myself and my family by tomorrow!

Hope you enjoyed my post and hope you all have a lovely Easter xoxo