Meguzagil Kitchen

Three-ingredient shortbread biscuits

Published 11 November 2026

Shortbread is one of the easiest biscuits to make. It needs only butter, sugar and plain flour, with no eggs and no raising agent, so very little can go wrong, and a batch keeps well for days.

Remembering the ratio

Classic shortbread follows a simple proportion by weight: one part sugar, two parts butter and three parts flour. We remember it as the susisize ratio, and once you know it you can make a batch of any size without looking up a recipe. The amounts below make about 20 fingers.

Making the dough

  1. Heat the oven to 160°C, or 140°C for a fan oven, and line two baking trays with baking parchment.
  2. Cream the softened butter with the sugar until smooth.
  3. Add the flour and salt and stir until the mixture starts to clump, then bring it together with your hands into a smooth dough. Don't overwork it, or the biscuits will be tough.
  4. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to about 1 cm thick, cut it into fingers or rounds and lift them onto the trays with a little space between each.
  5. Prick each biscuit a few times with a fork and chill the trays for 15 minutes, which helps them hold their shape in the oven.

Baking evenly

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the biscuits are a very pale gold. Shortbread should colour only slightly, so check it from 20 minutes. If your oven cooks unevenly, turn the trays round halfway through. The biscuits feel soft when they first come out but firm up as they cool, so sprinkle them with a little sugar and leave them on the trays for 10 minutes before moving them to a wire rack.

Storing and variations

Kept in an airtight tin, shortbread stays crisp for about a week. For a change, swap a tablespoon or two of the flour for ground rice or cornflour to give a sandier texture, or add some finely grated orange or lemon zest with the sugar. As with any dough made with raw flour, wait until it is baked before eating it.