Early training

I was looking through my big binder of recipes I've collected down through the years and found a 15-year-old clipping from the now-defunct Charlottesville weekly newspaper The Hook. The story I saved—"Dinner duos: Families cook up a storm"—is from the March 10, 2005 issue and covers a parent/child cooking class at HotCakes that Cassie and I attended when she was six years old. (Check out the pix of adorable little Cassie and her young-ish looking dad in the linked article and below.)

As the news item recounts, we prepared a whole meal, including "cornmeal-crusted chicken fingers, potatoes with fresh thyme and olive oil, baby lettuce salad with shredded apples, carrots, and orange vinaigrette, and strawberry shortcake" for dessert. What the story doesn't say is that, in the process of scaling up her biscuit recipe to make shortcakes for a crowd of people, the store owner who hosted the class miscalculated the amount of leavening on the short side, by a factor of three. I realized her mistake when she said it, but I was too embarrassed to correct her in front of everyone. Not surprisingly, when the biscuits came out of her oven, they were like squat little hockey pucks with no rise or layers to them at all. Despite that, Cassie still loves her some strawberry shortcakes—when they're made with properly baked biscuits anyway.

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Here is a new recipe not for shortcakes but shortbread. The first version of buttery shortbread I posted is good, but I like this one better. It not only tastes great, but you can make the recipe once and have the whole thing memorized, thanks to the simple ratio of the ingredients: two ounces of sugar, four ounces of butter, and six ounces of flour, hence the name Two-Four-Six Shortbread. And the process is ridiculously easy, too, letting you get the shortbread into the oven in just 13 minutes by my count (though it would take a little longer to double the recipe and make two pans of shortbread, which is never a bad idea). These are a perfect accompaniment to that afternoon cup of English tea none of you drink.

Bench scraper

Step 3: dough has been scored, pricked, and notched around the edge

Two-Four-Six Shortbread

(Buttery Shortbread 2.0)

Adapted from Paige Vandegrift via For Love of the Table

Time: ~1:15 total, but hardly any of it is hands on, including just 13 minutes to make the dough and get the shortbread into the oven

You can double the recipe and make the shortbread in two 8-inch round cake pans.

2 ounces/57 grams (~¼ cup) granulated white sugar
4 ounces/113 grams (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces and softened to cool room temperature (65 to 67 degrees)
¼ teaspoon fine salt
6 ounces/170 grams (scant 1½ cups) all-purpose flour

    1. Place a rack in the center of the oven; heat to 275 degrees. Very lightly butter an 8-inch round cake pan.
    2. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or a large bowl with a hand mixer, cream together the sugar, butter, and salt. Beat in the flour until the mixture comes together.
    3. Press the dough into an even layer in the bottom of the pan, smoothing the surface with your fingers or the bottom of a measuring cup. Using a bench scraper or other straight edge, score the dough—pressing down only about halfway through the dough—into 12 wedges (score halves first, then quarters, then the quarters into 3 wedges each). Using a fork, prick each wedge twice all the way through the dough. Use the tines of the fork, curved side facing down, to notch all around the edge of the dough (this symbolizes the sun’s rays in Scottish lore).
    4. Bake until set and light golden brown across the top, and a little deeper golden brown around the edge, about 45 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes still in the pan. Use a dull, rounded table or plastic knife to loosen around the edge (don’t scratch your pan if it’s nonstick). Carefully turn the shortbread out of the pan in one big piece, then flip back over onto a cutting board so the top is facing up. Using a sharp knife, cut into wedges along the lines you scored in step 3, while the shortbread is still warm. Transfer the individual wedges to a wire rack to cool completely. Makes 12.