I've been feeling frustrated by the state of the house as I haven't been able to do anything, but this morning thought... why not just 3 minutes? So I've done little rescues in 3 minute chunks and rested as needed. After that I wondered about baking, remembering Diane's post last week. I thought that I might try shortbread, as that is easy and I had the ingredients.
So I set the timer for 3 minutes
and started measuring out the ingredients. Shortbread is easy as you do a 3:2:1 ratio of flour, butter, sugar (I got this the wrong way round when I first measure but fixed it by doubling the amount of butter and flour!)
That was about the first three minutes. I had a break and then carried on. You have to beat the butter until it is soft.
Then you add the sugar. It was at this poin
t that I realised I'd got butter and sugar the wrong way around! I quickly measured out some more butter and flour, softened the butter and carried on! You stir the sugar in and you get a creamy paste. After this you sieve the flour in and stir and knead. In the middle of this another 3 minutes was up, so I rested and went back to it!
once you get it to the right consistency flatten it into a baking container, I scored mine (not so neat!) into fingers and sprinkled some more sugar on the top. Then it goes in the oven at gas mark 3 for 40 minutes.
Take it out of the oven once it is golden and leave it to rest for a couple of minutes, then turn it out onto a cooling rack.
