WELCOME TO AN ENTERTAINMENT SITE FOR SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCERS!
Enjoy this curated selection of theme-related dances for celebrations and holidays, or find a dance associated with a special calendar day, or EVEN your own birthday!
Jan 6
Shortbread Day
Helen's Shortbread
Other Scottish Country Dances for this Day
Today's Musings, History & Folklore
"Shortbread is not bread
And shortbread is not short.
It is medium in length and a biscuit, of sorts.
And it commonly comes in a tartan type tin
That is just long enough to keep shortbread in."
~ Anonymous
Yum! Yum! Got a favourite, secret, or family shortbread recipe? Or perhaps you prefer your shortbread in fingers, petticoat tails, rounds, decoratively molded or just rustically sliced ... shortbread is worth breaking those New Year's Resolutions! As we all know, "shortbread calories don’t count if they’re followed by a reel.” 🤪
This dance was devised by the fortunate recipients of a most enviable gift: shortbread from a generous dancer/baker named Helen! As the devisor explains, “The Otto family has five members, and for many years Helen has marked each of our birthdays with a batch of her marvelous shortbread. At Christmas, her shortbread is a highlight among the many baked delights she includes in our family gift package. Yum.” Several years ago, the family presented Helen with a circular wooden shortbread mold—and ever since, her shortbread gifts have arrived in perfect rounds!
Shape aside, true Scottish shortbread begins with just four ingredients: butter, salt, sugar, and flour. Adventurous bakers and top chefs may add modern flourishes—browning the butter, toasting the sugar, slipping in a little cornstarch, or lining the pan with a generous sprinkle of Demerara sugar for a delightfully crunchy finish. For traditional and regional variations, however, look to the dance description and the included recipes for Pitcaithly Bannock (with almonds, caraway seeds, and crystallized orange) or Yetholm Bannock (featuring chopped ginger)!
One final warning: you may want to wipe those buttery hands before taking the floor! 🤪 💛 🧡 💛 🧈 🧈 🧈 👨🍳
Helen's Shortbread
Everyone's favourite biscuit or cookie, shortbread, is known for its buttery goodness and crispy texture. Recipes are passed down in families with secret ratios of the three basic ingredients: butter, flour, sugar (and maybe a pinch of salt). Their sugary cousin, the sugar cookie has a much different texture, flavour, and snap!
Interestingly, during the time when many of the first shortbread recipes were published in the 18th century, they were more elaborate. They were baked with candied citrus peels and garnished with caraway comfits.
In Shetland, it is traditional to break a decorated shortbread cake over the head of a new bride on the entrance of her new house. Brides following this tradition generally prefer a more traditional recipe over the candied sticky peel sort.
Some claim that “traditional” Scottish shortbread is made with farola: “Scottish Shortbread is traditionally made with farola, a free-flowing cream coloured and fine granular powder or flour milled from durum wheat” though research into recipes has not yet supported this claim.
Most shortbread recipes today call for using caster sugar rather than granulated sugar. Note: caster sugar is not powdered sugar (which has added corn starch) . Caster sugar is very fine granulated sugar and commonly used British baking as it dissolves more rapidly leaving a finer texture to the baked good.
Click the millionaire's shortbread picture for the most decadent of shortbreads with chocolate and caramel, or for something more traditional, click the links below.
Pitcaithly Bannock (almonds, caraway seeds, crystallized orange)
Yetholm Bannock (chopped ginger)
Click the dance cribs or description below to link to a printable version of the dance!
