Hi Max! I live in Scotland and I think Mrs. MacIver is describing making petticoat tails before the fancy moulds cake about. The cuts are made in a giant oval like you’d cut a pizza but not all the way through. Then the edges are ‘plaited’ like you’d make crimped edges on a pie. That’s how all the grannies taught me to make shortbread. 😘💕
At 15, I learned to make Scottish Shortbread (only three ingredients) from my Canadian/Scottish grandmother, who got it from her mother from Scotland who got it from two previous generations. I am 70 now, have been making it since I was 15 and it is now a family tradition, passed on to my daughters.
I love these family traditions & have myself passed down several things that date back generations. I'm half Scottish & half French & it was my Scottish grandma who started teaching me to cook at 8. I'm now 57 & 1 of my grandma's recipes from her family dates back over 200 yrs (apple rolls). She made it only at Thanksgiving & Christmas & none of us could stay out of it b4 dessert!! You could always see a spoonful missing 1 from everyone taking a taste as soon as she set it down! She didn't have the recipe written down but bc I had a passion for cooking even though I was the youngest, (& was my grandma's favorite) she took me in the kitchen & taught me how to make it, no measuring all by eye, feel & taste. I adored my grandma, she is my guardian angel. I make it as she did, only at the holidays & as I make it I think of her! Bringing tears now as I type & have missed her so so much since I lost her at 17. Can't wait to see again!! It's so important that we impart these things on our families, sharing the memories, values while we're making new ones as we share together our "family traditions"!!
From dad…I’d love to know if this is the same recipe @bonnie_gail has. Measure your butter, salted is best. Add half that measurement in sugar and cream together. Then add twice the butter amount in all-purpose flour, mix just until combined and holds together, press into pan. Stab all over with a fork, bake at 325F about 25-35 minutes until edges turn a bit brown but it is still light and barely golden. Cut in pan while hot, then let it cool completely before removing from the pan. One stick of butter (8 ounces) will nicely fill an 8x8 pan.
Traditionally eaten with a glass of whisky on the side! To make it ‘shorter’ try adding fine semolina (550g flour + 50g semolina). My grandmother from the Highlands taught me that! 🏴
If bread had a lower tax, it may have been stipulated that the item MUST have yeast to qualify for the lower tax. So, they added it although it had little effect on the shortbread. But, it qualified it as a "bread" and therefore taxed lower. Makes sense, but it may not have been that at all...
Yes you're correct, bread was the staple in those times, so they used brewers yeast. However, they used other ingredients to enhance the flavours, but it still was classed as bread, so they wouldn't be taxed.
@@davidsain2129 a confectionery in the UK; sponge disc with a layer of orange jelly, all covered in chocolate. But the reason it's sponge is because cakes weren't taxed whereas biscuits were. So much so that they used to be more biscuit like and had to change their recipe if they wanted to be considered cakes. (They are effectively biscuits though, they're sold in the biscuits aisle, are the right size for a biscuit and are often bought to accompany tea)
@@halu959986 I had Jaffa cakes for the first time recently, & I'd definitely say the texture is much more reminiscent of a cake than a cookie (biscuit). More dry than a typical cake, but far too fluffy to be called a cookie (biscuit) in my opinion.
On Scottish names: I’m pretty sure most Scottish names were spelled based on how drunk the person was writing it down. My family name has about 12,000 spellings just to make things fun.
Your second book might be: "101 ways to use hardtack in cooking, building and self defense". I do suppose it might be handy as an improper weapon, too :)
@@MsLeenite Or flung like a discus to take out the enemy. Rumor has it that particularly special loaves could be placed on a prisoner's chest to detain him, much like Thor's Hammer Mjöllnir.
According to research during my dissertation on Elizabeth I, the name "Petticoat Tails" is a corruption of the French name for a similar biscuit baked in a mold called "petites gateaux tailles" or "little cakes cut off" , a name which Mary brought back to Scotland from France and which her cloddish 2nd husband, Lord Darney, attempted to pronounce in English much to the amusement of his courtiers who perpetuated the name when bringing the recipe back to England, as it was also a sly slur on Darnley and his higher-ranking bride. I found the anecdote charming and have always remembered it. Am delighting in your series.
Hi Max, As a Scottish Highlander, this video is interesting thank you for posting. We still do Black buns for the bells (midnight on new year) although not really for eating we use it to keep the front door open for first footers. We eat clootie dumpling now it's like a fruit cake that's boiled in a pillowcase. I hope 2022 is good craíc for you, we will have a dram for you. Cheers.
I recently found out that my paternal grandfather is from the highlands. He went on to marry a Choctaw/Cherokee woman in 1935 when interracial marriage was illegal. They went on to have 6 kids together. She died 25 years later from brain cancer and he took care of her the entire time. He never remarried and died in 1987, a year before I was born. He was an amazing man and dedicated to his family.
Max: "Carvi" is French for caraway. In the days of the "Auld Alliance", lots of Scots nobles sent their cooks and chefs to train in France, so they brought back French names for various items. Another French-based name is "Jamaica pepper" for allspice, since the French name for allspice is "poivre de Jamaique". There are other terms used in Scots cookery that have French origins. In my mother's family (Scottish heritage), they do not use yeast in their shortbread. They use butter, flour and powdered sugar, and that's all.
I love every time he said hardtack he always shows that clip when he just hits two hardtacks together. Please never stop doing this because it always makes me laugh 😆
I've totally fallen in love with this channel and am driving my husband crazy with random historical cooking information. I am binge watching all of these Amazing videos, that have combined some of my favorite things, cooking from scratch, and history!! I had no idea you existed, or that I needed this channel but Thank you Max!! 💓
I seriously cant get over how much effort, talent, research and personality you put into each one of your videos. Max, thank you for all of your wonderful content.
I don't always see what's going on because I often listen in the background but when I hear the clack clack i have to rewind and watch it. Max's concerned smile/silent scream face is so great.
Loved this. Thank you! 🏴I am an aged Scottish great-gran and remember well that my gran and great-gran made Shortbread to die for! Along with oatcakes, girdle scones and delicious tablet! 🏴The girdle scones were made on a round cast-iron girdle (griddle in English) on the stove top. As the girdle was cast iron it was used in the stove’s oven for shortbread if you didn’t have a separate cast iron pan for oven use. The edge of your shortbread was ‘pleated’ with your fingers or by turning a fork along it. Crimping in English has the same meaning. 🏴I had a chuckle about the first-footing on Hogmanay. My father was most often chosen as his family were dark haired highlanders. My mother’s family were also Scottish from the Shetlands so with a strong Viking background back to great-grandfather so plenty of blonde and red hair in that side! My youngest brother is a blond, and I am also blonde. We find that even as older folk we haven’t got more than a few grey hairs. I have a red haired granddaughter but other grandsons with dark brown hair and red beards who aren’t wanted as first-footers in the 2020s either! I can say with my tongue firmly in my cheek 😅 that, although some of my 20 great-grandkids are dark haired adults, not all will be called upon to be a first-footer bringing good luck to the house! 😊 However, they all like this old gran’s shortbread Et al. 🏴🏴
This is also in my family but through the Irish side of my mother’s English Quaker family. I wondered. We are in Canada, my Grandmother emigrated west in the early 1900s so we were basically cut off from the entire English family. My mom is 91 and has kind of dulled brown hair but little grey. I am 64 and have not greyed at all. The hairdressers come over to check my roots to see if it’s starting whenever I go in for a cut. Lol
I made hardtack and about a year later added it to a beef stew as per the Townsend video for thickener just to see what would happen. I smashed it with a hammer in a bag and the small crumbs did disintegrate and thickened the stew. The larger pieces, did not but did take on a dumpling texture. While it wasn't bad and pretty tasty, I would go with the normal thickeners we have today. In a camping or survival situation, it is an excellent thing to have on hand and use to thicken things. To this day I still have hardtack with my backup/emergency food supply. I just put it in a food save vacuum bag and it lasts forever and is waterproof.
@@Cara-39 NEED to? not if you want the weevils for extra protein ;) but hard tack can get too moist from the air in some areas, being from the South(ern US) myself I can attest that in soup weather (throw up a packet of Lipton, hold out bowl for soup as it comes down) can make ANYthing mold. Including but not limited to: rolls of paper, both towel and toilet. Walls- the dry wall AND the paint. Wood. Oil. Plastic. And any other surface that doesn't have direct sunlight on it for at least 4 hours daily.
Don't know if you've found this out yet or not, but the folds at the side of a kilt are also known as "plaits" and in the recipe, it means to basically make little folds or make it look almost like a kilt. I remember my gran mentioning it while making shortbread at Christmas when I was a child.
I think I have solved the issue of 'plait.' It can mean braiding, or pleating. I think the author of the book was talking about putting a decorative edge around the shortbread, much like pinching the edge on a pie crust, or using a fork to put a decorative trim on the edge. A lot of commercially made shortbread has a decorative trim such as a fork might make, and it looks pleated. I think that is what dear Mrs. MacIver was talking about.
My hairdresser came from Scotland. He described the New Year’s Day ritual as the “first fruiting”. The residents of a Village would walk next-door to their friends home carrying a bottle of whiskey. When admitted to the house the host would provide cakes and more whiskey. After 15 or 20 minutes, the guests would move onto the next house etc. The first fruiting was always conducted on foot for obvious reasons. Driving would be a terrible idea.
My grandfather who was from Ayr. He gave my mom a recipe that from his mother. The recipe called called for the dough to shaped into a rectangle before being cut into plaits and docked. When I make the recipe, I use a high quality European style butter, preferably from grass fed cows. It makes a huge difference in the final shortbread.
I think she means means Pleating which I would take as crimping in modern lingo, as Plait in Scots refers to how a kilt is Pleated at the back. Other than that HAPPY HOGMANAY!
Your Scottish accent invokes Alan Young's Scrooge McDuck! When you were reading the part about "cookies and baiks" it made me think of him in Mickey's Christmas Carol talking about all the foods in the story. This really has nothing to do with shortbread; I just wanted to share that on this almost a year old video. Happy holidays!
Hmmm… petticoat tails. Might have nothing to do with ladies underwear. Men wore petite coats (vests) that had triangular tabs around the waist during the 16th to 18th centuries. 🧐
Lovely episode! My mother was born in the year 1920 and raised in Edinburgh. She would reminisce that as a child, her father (my grandfather), who was tall and dark-haired, was much in demand during Hogmanay. He would set out to visit all their friends and acquaintances that evening to be their 'first-footer' and was most certainly considered the best of luck!
Yeah, I live in the US, but we have a lot of old world superstitions in my family on my grandmother’s side. She was extremely particular about them too. The first person through the door HAD to be a man with, like said, dark hair and a dark complexion. She went so far as to push my mom or I out of the door if we dared try to step in first. lol We also have things like no linens washed in the first seven days, eat 12 grapes as the clock strikes midnight, all sorts of things. Now that the family is just my mom and I we can’t really keep up a lot of the traditions, but we do the ones we can. No men in our lives though, so we just don’t have anyone come in on the first day of the year. lol
@@nodruj8681 and my family had Romani, Native American, and several other races added in, so whatever the "original" was, ours had dark complexion as part of the tradition. Not to mention that traditions can vary from region to region, town to town, family to family. There’s a January Christmas tradition celebrated in the Outer Banks of NC that you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere else in America, but comes from the old world.
Thank you, Max! I'm reading a romance novel set in Scotland and the author mentions in passing one character learning how to make black buns and now I know what she meant, thanks to you.
My family is Scottish by heritage, and have kept a couple of the traditions alive for the past 200 years. One of those is the shape or the way that you present the shortbread. My grandmother taught us how to roll or "plait" the edges of the shortbread prior to baking so that it looked "ready for company". For lack of a better description, you just thin the edges out and roll them from the initial cut through the brick of short bread to the next cut, then take up from there until all the outside edges are rolled up in an edging. I do the same when making pasties to keep the filling from leaking out. I think the ovals they are talking about are much bigger than what you've made. My Grandmother and great grandmother made their's rather large, about a quarter of the dough, and then when scoring it, for easier breaking later, they would start the plaiting at the edge of one of the cuts and go around the edge, all the way back to the original start. I am teaching my granddaughters how to do it, but it's getting a lot harder to find anyone willing to take the time. The amount of butter seems to take it out of favor with the majority of the posterity these days.
Not me -- give me butter over vegetable shortening or margarine any day! Especially when you consider that such things are so processed, to where it's a mere molecule away from being plastic. Ugh! That's so *not* soul food. And to me, anything from my ancestors is soul food!
My ex-husband's family have a cookie recipe that has butter, cream cheese among other good ingredients. He always complained I didn't make it often enough. I told him once a year was enough because his family had a lot of heart problems among other things. He still grumbled but he really loved them once a year.
I would love to see photos or a video of how that's done! I make a lot of shortbread by popular request and I'd love to learn how to add such a traditional flair to it!
Thanks for your great series! I am a (US) historian of Scottish material & social culture, teach the Social History of Food and have made a modern, family shortbread recipe for decades. I’m highly intrigued by the use of boiled butter (rather than cold, solid butter creamed with the sugar>add the flour, etc.) and the use of yeast. That’s not at all modern, as you point out, but lots of classic "bread/cake" recipes used to use yeast. The boiled butter will indeed produce a totally different texture (also way easier to incorporate than creaming the butter and then incorporating the large amounts of flour: I always wrestle with the dough at that step of the process) as liquid fat means cold shortening coating is no longer coating each flour particle and isolating it from the other particles during the first stages of the baking. Your final product looked to have a laminar texture rather than a mass of individual particles/crumbs adhering together. As for the "plaiting," Celeste Sharratt’s comment makes sense. Another clue is in one of the historical descriptions you mentioned (~11:40 in), saying that the ends of the large, "sun" disk were twisted around the outside. I’ll definitely try this boiled butter/yeasted version. My family’s recipe, by the way is essentially "1 pound butter; 1 pound sugar & 1/2 pound sugar." …Yes, First Footing is still done and you preferably want a dark-haired (male) to come through your door first.
I just made shortbread cookies last week. They're the most requested Christmas cookies in our house. I like to make "thumbprint" shortbread and add a bit of jam to them. They're so addictive and it's easy to get carried away simply because they aren't overly sweet. I really want to try braiding the dough now. I think it could work and would be so pretty.
I had learned (Grandmother was Scot), the the plait was the decorative edge you make as for pastry. Either ruffles like a petticoat tail, or done with a fork. The “ovals are rounds cut into sections, like triangles, then the bottom is pinched into a ruffle or pressed with a fork. I’m thinking the boiled butter gave the shortbread a more toasted flavour. Very interesting tho!
A possibility for the “plaiting:” It could be Mrs. MacIver’s version of petticoat tails. If you roll out the dough in a big circle, then cut slits all the way around, you could braid those slits, sideways, to follow the edge of the circle. I think. (Maybe that only makes sense in my head.)
I THINK I KNOW HOW THESE WERE MAKE!!!! The whole cutting/pleating thing!!! Check out Danish 'kleiner' - they're these little deep fried twists, but to shape them, you roll the dough out flat, slit a hole in the middle of it, then pass one end of dough through the hole. It makes a sort of pleat.
Do love a good bit of shortbread. When I used to help my Gran make it we'd sometimes put in a snippet of lavender from the garden to perfume it. Though I preferred it in the Autumn when we'd been picking cobb [wild hazelnuts] nuts. They's be roasted off & we'd either have chopped cobbs or a solitary whole one on each piece. Still think my favourite with a pot of tea is a "Highlander" which is a wee round of shortbread that has the rim rolled in demerara sugar before baking. Huzzah! My chattering away in the comments has paid off. Think you're the first non Scottish person to mention Black Bun in a video! I love the stuff. Can be a bit heavy & dry for some palates. Just make sure that you get good quality currants as as it's so dense with them if they have seeds in them the whole bun has a gritty texture. I still make & take Black Bun as part of my first Footing. That whisky & salt... though I put the salt down to the Norwegian part of the family, it's always the gift for Hogmanay & whenever someone moves into a new house as it's bad luck to move salt from your old house to the new one.
Interesting! In Appalachia, some of the housewarming gifts to a new couple include salt (to sprinkle at the doorway so the Devil can't come in), a new broom (a new broom sweeps clean), bread, and a sweet. I usually put them all in a new mop bucket or a new waste basket.
@@DodiTov Interesting from my viewpoint too. Some of the other traditions are that the grate [fireplace] should be swept out & a new fire laid & lit for the new year [why we bring the lump of coal, for the new fire & to symbolise that the fire will burn through the coming year. The house should also be cleaned before new year. At midnight the front & back doors are opened, to let the new year in & the old one out; where the new broom comes in? Salt was also used as a cleanser for the house... I still clean my kitchen & chopping boards with salt to this day, & its well known as a barrier or cleanser. As salt absorbed dirt/evil, that's why you didn't take it to a new house... you'd be carrying old, bad things there. Everyone should also have at least some coins in their pockets as how one starts the year is how you'll go through it. Also all bills & debts should be paid before the new year. Really interesting to hear how many of the old traditions made it to the "new world", thank you.
If I remember correctly, there's a song from the Temperance Movement with the words, "We never eat cookies because they have yeast, and one little bite turns a man into beast! O can you imagine a greater disgrace, than a man in the gutter with crumbs on his face!" Your episode is the first time I've ever heard of yeast being used in cookies. Thanks for clearing up a wee mystery!
I just made shortbread yesterday! My go-to "recipe" is to use 1 part softened cultured butter, 2 parts sugar, and 3 parts flour. I'll also add a little vanilla. Cut it together with a pastry cutter until it is crumbly, shape it into a round and prick with a fork, then bake at 325 until it's just golden. If I'm feeling cheeky, I'll press pecans or chocolate chips on top before I bake or mix in some fresh rosemary with the dough. Such a simple, delicious treat.
@@m.leesmith6157 I scoop-not sure if weighing would give you the right proportions, now that I think about it. To be honest, I couldn't be bothered to get out a measuring cup yesterday and just eyeballed it...
My family makes polish chrusciki and with those we make a diamond shape and cut a slice in the middle and then take the ends and gently pull them through the middle. This makes a lovely twisted appearance at both ends. Maybe this is what the author meant?
I agree, from the directions I was picturing the way Challah is braided, and looking at pictures of the process it seems like this is what the author was describing?
I make a fabulous shortbread, but I don't bake it like the methods you say. I roll out the dough and cut it into small bars, then bake. They're delicious!!!! My great aunt made them every Christmas and so I decided in the late 1980s, I would bring back the tradition of shortbread at Christmas. But...... I could not find a recipe that tasted like what the memory of what hers tasted like. I improvised and made additions to a recipe that I found which uses powdered / confectioners sugar.
The moment Max started talking about petticoats I started dreaming about his collar with Bernadette Banner or any other historical costuber. Is it just me or are they the same fandom? At least a little?
The boiled butter is for salding the flour, but with butter instead of water. Flour scalding is also known as yudane in Asia, having made it from Europe to Japan a few hundred years ago. There is also the method of boiling the flour, known as water roux, which is also known as tangzhong in Asia. Although scalding the flour started in Europe, in was modified in Japan into boiling the flour (water roux), before making it back to europe.
Cut through the middle and plait it at the ends I think could be one of two things in my opinion, but not sure how well it would work with shortbread: - cut lengthwise most of the way so you get 2 strands connected at one end, then braid those - or, something my grandma used to do with donuts is to: make a cut/hole in the middle but not to the edge, then take one end and put it through the whole to create a lazy looking bow
Call me juvenile, but I LOVE the clip of you smacking the hardtack rounds together - the look on your face really sells it :D Please please never get rid of that clip, and keep working it in every couple of months! Happy holidays to you and your husband and y'alls families!
In the little northern German village I used to live in, we had a very drunken kind of "first footing" for New Year: around lunch time (give people some sleep after New Year's Eve), a neighbor would come to your door with a bottle of grain brandy, you had a drink together, then all moved on to another neighbor (with more bottles), until in late afternoon whole crowds stormed your living room (depending on which end of the street you lived), and half the village was fairly drunk... 😃
I SCREAMED!!! I'm a McVicar, and MacIver is one of several alternative spellings (because almost every name from those days has many multiple spellings, like Hogmany). If I'm not related to her I'm at least from the same clan. It's not a super common name so I was pleasantly surprised.
And we have an old Scottish Shortbread cookie recipe that was passed to my grandmother (born 1910) from her best friend's father, Willie Matheson, who had a Scottish bakery in my city 100ish years ago. His recipe was pretty much 1/3 sugar, 1/3 butter, and 1/3 flour (and a little of the flour is rice flour, which adds a nice texture).
I love the way you look when your trying to explain how the food taste and texture. My grandmother always used the shortbread for for pie crust and what we called dip sticks. You dip them in pudding, icecream and stuff like that. Good job on tackling this recipe.
@@texaschrissy1985 don’t worry, no one is offended 😊 it’s true though - dipstick is an insult in the UK (unsure why). Funny how the same words mean different things around the world!
Never would have imagined that an episode on shortbread would include calling Mary Queen of Scots the Beyoncé of Stuarts and also referencing Shaun of the Dead. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
I love this channel. I think I started watching at about 200K followers and everything about it makes me smile, from the Pokemons to the recipes to Max's brilliance. All I can say is "Here's to 2022!"
I'm moving to Edinburgh next September for Grad school so I'm used to the random Scottish accent (thanks to my husband). I'm definitely going to have to make this recipe this weekend. Thanks for sharing!!
@@TastingHistory Good on you! I immensely love Scotland and Ireland, and I am always happy for the people who get to visit them. I hope to visit again, too, as soon as possible.
@@TastingHistory Yay! I'm in South Queensferry, just outside Edinburgh, at the south end of all three bridges that cross the Forth. It's a ridiculously pretty village, a world heritage UNESCO site and has some gorgeous wee coffee shops, you should come visit us!
Things I recommend as an Edinburger: get a fish supper with salt n sauce from a proper chippy, a can of Irn Bru too! Always queue when you’re waiting for a bus, or you’ll get some angry looks. You’re now Scottish. Also is it Edinburgh University you’re going to?
The way it melts in your mouth is my favorite thing about my grandmas traditional shortbread recipe, which she says Must be made with cold butter....which makes it very difficult to make 😵💫 BUT ITS DELIGHTFUL
I loved my great grandmother's Shortbread with current jam and a cup of strong hot tea. She would always have all three ready for me when I returned home from school. It's very comforting to me because it reminds me of my childhood.
I love the joy you bring to your work. Excuse me for saying so but sir, you sparkle. Your channel is my happy place. Happy New Year and thank you for the wholesome content!
Just the name alone had me clicking and commenting. Now I get to see exactly what the hell this stuff is! Happy NY Max and Jose and I truly enjoy the videos. Actually have made a couple.
I've studied actually the derivations of Scottish shortbread, spritz, Danish and Norwegian butter cookies since the recipes are so so similar. Thank you for filling in one of my suspected branches - the Scottish Shortbread Victorian era (with an egg) which is what a spritz cookie recipe is. I LOVE Butter cookies - no matter where their origin is. It would be such a neat history lesson to do a 'family tree' of these recipes...... Especially when did Almond was introduce as a flavor, and how did the temperature become the factor of how these became different cookies. AND my Scottish Husband loved the Hogmanay part -- tomorrow we start our feasts of fun.
In Transylvania, we have a dessert called ciurighele. In the recipe, it is said that you must cut the flattened dough in rectangles and then you make a cut (an incision) in the middle of each piece. You finish them by taking one or two corners and you pass them through the incision resulting in a somehow braided appearance. Maybe this is similar to what Mrs Machiver was referring
A winter celebration beginning with "Hog-" and the tradition like First Footing is REALLY making me miss Terry Prachett. And now I am also really craving shortbread but too sick to make it any time soon. :(
Yes, please make some black bun. I love to learn about any cool historical recipe from my Scotch-Irish roots. I will have to try a small batch of your shortbread to go with our traditional black eyed pea new year's lunch. Happy New Year to you and the family from Texas! ❤
Hey Max! Like many others have commented I think she was describing a large oval with partial cuts through for ease of separating after baking. Then the "plaiting the ends" means pleating or pinching the outside edge of the oval into shape much like the edge of a pie crust. I remember getting Scottish shortbread around Christmas, so yummy and yes it turns to paste in your mouth. I don't think it is the yeast that made that textural change from what you are used to but... All the butter! Specially that it is boiling when added to the flour so starts cooking it while separating each grain of flour. There is no gluten development partially because of the lack of kneading but also because of this. Happy New Year to you, Jose and the cats!
Man, I can't wait for the Hardtack commemoration episode. Truly, the undying bread. Also, I do hope than next Hogmanay you make that dense, black substance, inimical to life, wrapped in its pastry hell (best propaganda ever). Shortbread, or as a South Yorkshire friend with thick Yoarkshair accent would call it, "coughbread", is wild; for oh, how bad you could choke on it if you had no drink to wash it down! Bad call on my part, not drinking something when trying it for the first time.Tasty, though. Goes great with Earl Gray. And now I need a cup of tea. Happy new year to you, Max, and may more arcane recipes come your way. Your takes on them are all delightful. Bedight with your wit as they are.
Just found your channel, and it reminds me of of my Mum's parents who came to the States in 1923 from the Clydebank part of Scotland and my Mum was a first generation American. All kinds of customs and holiday traditions were passed along. Grandma used to make it into cakes that were docked and scored into 'fingers' for ease of serving. She wrapped her cakes in waxed paper and kept them in a tin in her pantry. I used to love how it would melt in my mouth, and was often known to break off pieces to hoard in my "secret box of goodies" tucked under a loose floorboard in my room. My Grandpa always said not to trust a woman with warm hands as the butter would melt while rubbing the ingredients together while making her shortbread. Your video warmed my heart ❤️. Thanks for the memories. Liked and Subscribed, too.
Thanks for winding up the year with the hardtack reference! 😂 Wondering if her reference to "plaiting" isn't just the twists on the outside edges... ? And it's a good thing you're already married. No shortbread crumbs in your hair. I can see why that tradition faded away (or at least, I hope it did, lol). Much appreciation for all you do. Holiday blessings to you & José! Looking forward to more TH adventures in 2022... 💖🎉
Hi Max! I made this this morning after watching yesterday. Halved your recipe and left almost all the sugar in. Mine taste like pie pastry (which I happen to love) and still not too sweet! Awesome experience, much gratitude!
Love the hard tack and now all the old westerns and pioneer and those old one talk about hardtack and it reminds me of you hitting 2 hardtacks together, keep it up Max, we love your videos.
Absolutely fantastic video. Thank you from an American living in Scotland. BTW: Edinburgh, when said by a Scot, sounds like En-brr-uh. Glasgow, on the other hand, sounds like Glesca. Another BTW... shortbread is beast eaten with a dram of single malt whisky. First-footing is still popular in rural Angus. Tall, dark visitors are best but they must come with a cake (shortbread usually), a dram (always whisky), and a piece of coal for the fire. Their arrival usually signals the start of a session of drunken revelry that takes most of New Year's day to recover from. This recovery is aided by the lavish application of "Christmas Cake" (fruitcake) that has been well soaked with brandy and allowed to cure for anywhere from three months to a year.
I am Scottish! I loved your old fashioned version of a scottish accent, it made me laugh 😂😂😂😀😁❤️🥰. I moved away from Scotlamd 20 years ago so I am not sure if people still follow that tradition, i am from the countryside though.
It's weird how I'm pretty sure I've had this yeasted version as a child. As soon as you broke the biscuit and took a bite, I knew immediately how it tasted. When you said it was like "glue" I knew for sure I'd had it before. It's a very pleasant glue-y texture. I remember sucking on it to get the butter flavor from it. I haven't had it since I was a child and I have no idea when or where it came from or the circumstance but I know I have had it before. I'm almost certain my great grandmother used to make it that way and I do remember my mother always being so frustrated that she could never get her "traditional" shortbread recipes to come out like her grandmother's. Now I know why!
My family is a mix of about half Irish and half Scot. We have always included these in our holiday treats. The way we have always eaten them is similar to biscotti, but because they crumble so easily, you take a bite and then a mouthful of tea, coffee, wine, etc. and hold it in your mouth and let them dissolve - heavenly. Gran and some will break off a piece and put it on their spoon that is filled with their drink, wait a bit and then eat, then another sip of drink. BTW, taking a bite and then a mouthful of drink and waiting to swallow is also how I eat biscotti, as I get tired or the biscotti falling in my drink and having to fish it out. Love your channel.
As a note about the 'First Footers' you mention, as a sort of good luck thing my sister and I always leave the house at 11:55 on new year's night, and bring in a box of shortbread just after midnight. Best to get the good luck in quickly.
One thing to help you on 1600 and before english documents would be to be in mind of the great vowel shift. For example, plait would have been pronounced pleat. This is the ripple, like you do with fingers or a fork.
If you "pleat" or crimp the edges of a circle of shortbread, the way you would finger-crimp the edge of a homemade pie crust, I think that's the effect they're looking for.
There is a cookie from India that is flour, melted ghee and powdered sugar. Seasoned with ground cardamom then baked. They are so yummy. It’s amazing how similar or even the same ingredients put together differently can end up so different.
Happy New Year, little Shaymin in the background. And a lovely rendition of "Auld Lang Syne" for you, Max and José. Shortbread cookies/biscuits are not my ideal choice for accompanying tea, never mind at Christmas or New Year's. But I will eat them over their derivative sugar cookies, with or without decorative icing. Oat cakes/oat biscuits, and the more recognized oatmeal raisin cookies, are my favorite tea time biscuits.
Here's a lesson in the dough. Cut a slit in the oval you make. Along the length, about half the length of the oval of dough. lift one end, feed it through the slit, do so again. A bit of flour on your knife and hands will make it easier. That's what that one is. Two twists, and don't flatten it afterward. I love everything you do.
Oh, there are several Scottish dishes that might be worth a look from an historical point of view. The Barley Bannock, Skirlie, Stovies and, of course, Haggis. You might also want to look into Christmas Cake and Black Pudding as they are crucial to understanding the idea of Scottish conviviality. Thanks, Max, for a great year of superb content. May you and your partner have a glorious New Year.
I had a thought about the shaping, that you were stumped about. I have some recipes where you cut it, but leave it in place on the sheet pan then bake it like it’s whole. Then break it apart after cooking. The slices should snap apart at the cut lines. The braiding is most likely like a pasty, roll the edges over to make it look pretty.
I figured it was braided in a similar way to those leather bracelets. Split the middle and braid, turning the end inside out to release the twist until you reach the bottom.
Hey Max, I wanted to say thank you for your show. My daughter (she's 5) loves watching you before bed and though she usually falls asleep before the end, she too absolutely loves your show. Her and I watch it at bedtime and usually she fights to go to sleep but since I've been asking her "want to watch Tasting History before bed?" She gets really excited and doesn't fight bedtime at all. Thanks again and I hope you have a happy New Year.
Greatly appreciating this episode, partly from Scots pride and the other part because so many people in the world are being so nasty right now, that shutting myself up in my apartment and making some shortbread is a lil' blessing. Thank you, Max.
Use been home sick with the plague again and this channel has been all I've been watching. Thank you for this channel, and also.....the hard tack bit never gets old ❤
LOVED this episode. I've got a 3lb tin of Walkers that we're working on at the moment. So I will try this after them. Lol I'm very interested in this though, using yeast sou d intriguing. When you were eating it I thought of madelines for some reason. Kind of reminded me of them. And that hard tac clip is legendary!!! So when I bake your shortbread and someone asks for the recipe I can say oh its something I just MacGiver'ed together. 😅
Intrigued, I set about to make this shortbread. I cut the recipe back to 1/4 of the recipe given, as I did not want to waste ingredients. I allowed the butter to brown slightly (as in Finnish brown butter cookies) and cooled to warm before adding to flour, then mashed it into the flour with the flat of a wooden spoon until all globules of butter were broken down into what would be comparable to when cutting butter into flour, not sand like, but rather, small peas. Then I added the yeast mixture (allowed to stand 30 minutes and nice and foamy). The mixture seemed to dry, and I wasn't quite sure if I had gotten the butter ration correct, so to the 2 tbsp of butter previously incorporated, I added one more (melted). The mixture was still quite dry seeming, so I added a tbsp of buttermilk (as this reminds me of a scone recipe). The mixture then gathered well into a ball and I allowed it to sit for two hours, until puffy, rolled it into a round, (thin) and cut as for petticoats, finished the wide edge with a pleat, pricked through and baked at 320 for 20 min. (convection heat). The result was a crispy outside (nicely browned) and flaky interior with a pleasant, mildly buttery, flavour. Next time, I will not separate the petticoat tails, as I did (the points browned quickly), and I will roll the dough thicker. I believe the thinness of my roll correlated with the reduction in time. This product (cookie, biscuit?) was not gummy at all when eaten.
Hi Max! I live in Scotland and I think Mrs. MacIver is describing making petticoat tails before the fancy moulds cake about. The cuts are made in a giant oval like you’d cut a pizza but not all the way through. Then the edges are ‘plaited’ like you’d make crimped edges on a pie. That’s how all the grannies taught me to make shortbread. 😘💕
That would explain it!
You beat me to it, I always assumed that the "plaited" was just the crimped edges too.
As soon as he showed the picture of petticoat tails I wondered if that was what she meant. Very neat!
Pretty much what I was going to post and the way I still make my shortbread.
I just wrote the same thing! Beat me too it.
At 15, I learned to make Scottish Shortbread (only three ingredients) from my Canadian/Scottish grandmother, who got it from her mother from Scotland who got it from two previous generations. I am 70 now, have been making it since I was 15 and it is now a family tradition, passed on to my daughters.
What lucky girls your daughter’s are! I’d love to have your recipe. 😊
I love these family traditions & have myself passed down several things that date back generations. I'm half Scottish & half French & it was my Scottish grandma who started teaching me to cook at 8. I'm now 57 & 1 of my grandma's recipes from her family dates back over 200 yrs (apple rolls). She made it only at Thanksgiving & Christmas & none of us could stay out of it b4 dessert!! You could always see a spoonful missing 1 from everyone taking a taste as soon as she set it down! She didn't have the recipe written down but bc I had a passion for cooking even though I was the youngest, (& was my grandma's favorite) she took me in the kitchen & taught me how to make it, no measuring all by eye, feel & taste. I adored my grandma, she is my guardian angel. I make it as she did, only at the holidays & as I make it I think of her! Bringing tears now as I type & have missed her so so much since I lost her at 17. Can't wait to see again!! It's so important that we impart these things on our families, sharing the memories, values while we're making new ones as we share together our "family traditions"!!
From dad…I’d love to know if this is the same recipe @bonnie_gail has.
Measure your butter, salted is best. Add half that measurement in sugar and cream together. Then add twice the butter amount in all-purpose flour, mix just until combined and holds together, press into pan. Stab all over with a fork, bake at 325F about 25-35 minutes until edges turn a bit brown but it is still light and barely golden. Cut in pan while hot, then let it cool completely before removing from the pan. One stick of butter (8 ounces) will nicely fill an 8x8 pan.
This is lovely! I can't find my shortbread recipe from my Scottish Aunts. @MontyCats,
Thank you!
Settled in Alberta?
I never get tired of the hardtack cut-away. Laugh every time.
CLACK CLACK
This and then anticipation of pokemon choice.
best running gag!
Every single time
I loved that almost scared look as Max contemplated using the hard tack in a recipe next year.
"It's like eating glue, but in a good way" is one of the best reviews of a recipe yet
Happy Ralph noises
Traditionally eaten with a glass of whisky on the side! To make it ‘shorter’ try adding fine semolina (550g flour + 50g semolina). My grandmother from the Highlands taught me that! 🏴
If bread had a lower tax, it may have been stipulated that the item MUST have yeast to qualify for the lower tax. So, they added it although it had little effect on the shortbread. But, it qualified it as a "bread" and therefore taxed lower. Makes sense, but it may not have been that at all...
Yes you're correct, bread was the staple in those times, so they used brewers yeast. However, they used other ingredients to enhance the flavours, but it still was classed as bread, so they wouldn't be taxed.
I love how loopholes created tasty treats; JaffaCakes here in the UK will likely be my favourite though
@@halu959986 what are Jaffa cakes?
@@davidsain2129 a confectionery in the UK; sponge disc with a layer of orange jelly, all covered in chocolate. But the reason it's sponge is because cakes weren't taxed whereas biscuits were. So much so that they used to be more biscuit like and had to change their recipe if they wanted to be considered cakes. (They are effectively biscuits though, they're sold in the biscuits aisle, are the right size for a biscuit and are often bought to accompany tea)
@@halu959986 I had Jaffa cakes for the first time recently, & I'd definitely say the texture is much more reminiscent of a cake than a cookie (biscuit). More dry than a typical cake, but far too fluffy to be called a cookie (biscuit) in my opinion.
On Scottish names: I’m pretty sure most Scottish names were spelled based on how drunk the person was writing it down. My family name has about 12,000 spellings just to make things fun.
Your second book might be: "101 ways to use hardtack in cooking, building and self defense". I do suppose it might be handy as an improper weapon, too :)
It's Dwarf Bread.
@@gpweaver Came here to say the same. A man can march hundreds of miles with Dwarf Bread in his pack.
GNU Terry Pratchett!
@@tarmaque If necessary, he can make sandals out of the Dwarf Bread and march another hundred.
Food-as-weapon: My great-grandmother's matzoh balls were so hard, dense and hefty, we joked that she used to throw them at the rioters during pogroms.
@@MsLeenite Or flung like a discus to take out the enemy. Rumor has it that particularly special loaves could be placed on a prisoner's chest to detain him, much like Thor's Hammer Mjöllnir.
According to research during my dissertation on Elizabeth I, the name "Petticoat Tails" is a corruption of the French name for a similar biscuit baked in a mold called "petites gateaux tailles" or "little cakes cut off" , a name which Mary brought back to Scotland from France and which her cloddish 2nd husband, Lord Darney, attempted to pronounce in English much to the amusement of his courtiers who perpetuated the name when bringing the recipe back to England, as it was also a sly slur on Darnley and his higher-ranking bride. I found the anecdote charming and have always remembered it. Am delighting in your series.
The hard tack bit is pure comedy and will never get old 👏👏
Much like the hardtack itself lmao
How many videos has it appeared in?
And neither will the hardtack.
Hi Max, As a Scottish Highlander, this video is interesting thank you for posting. We still do Black buns for the bells (midnight on new year) although not really for eating we use it to keep the front door open for first footers. We eat clootie dumpling now it's like a fruit cake that's boiled in a pillowcase. I hope 2022 is good craíc for you, we will have a dram for you. Cheers.
I miss first footing down south:(
I recently found out that my paternal grandfather is from the highlands. He went on to marry a Choctaw/Cherokee woman in 1935 when interracial marriage was illegal. They went on to have 6 kids together. She died 25 years later from brain cancer and he took care of her the entire time. He never remarried and died in 1987, a year before I was born. He was an amazing man and dedicated to his family.
💖
I've nay seen black bun in ages, I always thought it was boggin 😂
@@TheDizastarmasterI'm in Fife and here it's in every bakery😂
Mrs MacIver sounds like someone who can cook anything with just an army knife.
🤣
One might almost say she could... MacGyver food?
I have a friend who says the only way to eat fruit is with a jack knife and I believe her.
Good to know I wasn't the only one who made that connection, lol! Gen-X represent. xD
@@milliehaagen7526 she's got a jack knife; you'd best not be arguing with her!
😲
Remember this when making the year-old hardtack recipe: Always choose the lesser of two weevils.
Master and commander! 😆
😂😂😂
Max: "Carvi" is French for caraway. In the days of the "Auld Alliance", lots of Scots nobles sent their cooks and chefs to train in France, so they brought back French names for various items. Another French-based name is "Jamaica pepper" for allspice, since the French name for allspice is "poivre de Jamaique". There are other terms used in Scots cookery that have French origins.
In my mother's family (Scottish heritage), they do not use yeast in their shortbread. They use butter, flour and powdered sugar, and that's all.
I love every time he said hardtack he always shows that clip when he just hits two hardtacks together. Please never stop doing this because it always makes me laugh 😆
Me too!😆😆🤣🤣
I've totally fallen in love with this channel and am driving my husband crazy with random historical cooking information. I am binge watching all of these Amazing videos, that have combined some of my favorite things, cooking from scratch, and history!! I had no idea you existed, or that I needed this channel but Thank you Max!! 💓
I call it the Max effect.
@@dmckim3174mckim?? Our name isn't that common... especially with this spelling... can you tell me where you are from?
I seriously cant get over how much effort, talent, research and personality you put into each one of your videos. Max, thank you for all of your wonderful content.
Return of the hard tack clip!
Still makes me smile every time.
I get the click-clack in my head any time someone mentions hardtack... Which happens more often than one would think in my life...
*And* Max has now promised us a sequel to the hard tack episode! What will the title be? Hard Tack Returns? The Hard Tack Strikes Back? 2 Hard 2 Tack?
@@gozerthegozarian9500 Hardertack.
Hardtack Circles the Globe…Again!
I don't always see what's going on because I often listen in the background but when I hear the clack clack i have to rewind and watch it. Max's concerned smile/silent scream face is so great.
Loved this. Thank you!
🏴I am an aged Scottish great-gran and remember well that my gran and great-gran made Shortbread to die for! Along with oatcakes, girdle scones and delicious tablet! 🏴The girdle scones were made on a round cast-iron girdle (griddle in English) on the stove top. As the girdle was cast iron it was used in the stove’s oven for shortbread if you didn’t have a separate cast iron pan for oven use. The edge of your shortbread was ‘pleated’ with your fingers or by turning a fork along it. Crimping in English has the same meaning.
🏴I had a chuckle about the first-footing on Hogmanay. My father was most often chosen as his family were dark haired highlanders. My mother’s family were also Scottish from the Shetlands so with a strong Viking background back to great-grandfather so plenty of blonde and red hair in that side! My youngest brother is a blond, and I am also blonde. We find that even as older folk we haven’t got more than a few grey hairs. I have a red haired granddaughter but other grandsons with dark brown hair and red beards who aren’t wanted as first-footers in the 2020s either! I can say with my tongue firmly in my cheek 😅 that, although some of my 20 great-grandkids are dark haired adults, not all will be called upon to be a first-footer bringing good luck to the house! 😊 However, they all like this old gran’s shortbread Et al. 🏴🏴
This is also in my family but through the Irish side of my mother’s English Quaker family. I wondered. We are in Canada, my Grandmother emigrated west in the early 1900s so we were basically cut off from the entire English family. My mom is 91 and has kind of dulled brown hair but little grey. I am 64 and have not greyed at all. The hairdressers come over to check my roots to see if it’s starting whenever I go in for a cut. Lol
I made hardtack and about a year later added it to a beef stew as per the Townsend video for thickener just to see what would happen. I smashed it with a hammer in a bag and the small crumbs did disintegrate and thickened the stew. The larger pieces, did not but did take on a dumpling texture. While it wasn't bad and pretty tasty, I would go with the normal thickeners we have today. In a camping or survival situation, it is an excellent thing to have on hand and use to thicken things. To this day I still have hardtack with my backup/emergency food supply. I just put it in a food save vacuum bag and it lasts forever and is waterproof.
**Survivalist Kat takes notes**
Does hardtack even need to be kept in vacuum bag to last forever and be waterproof?? 🤣
@@Cara-39 Yes, you don't want it to get bugs in it.
@@Cara-39 NEED to? not if you want the weevils for extra protein ;) but hard tack can get too moist from the air in some areas, being from the South(ern US) myself I can attest that in soup weather (throw up a packet of Lipton, hold out bowl for soup as it comes down) can make ANYthing mold. Including but not limited to: rolls of paper, both towel and toilet. Walls- the dry wall AND the paint. Wood. Oil. Plastic. And any other surface that doesn't have direct sunlight on it for at least 4 hours daily.
Don't know if you've found this out yet or not, but the folds at the side of a kilt are also known as "plaits" and in the recipe, it means to basically make little folds or make it look almost like a kilt. I remember my gran mentioning it while making shortbread at Christmas when I was a child.
They’re pleats, actually. Professional pipe band player here, been wearing kilts since I was 12…and military…
@@jessehachey2732 and I'm Scottish. I've always seen it spelled plaits but it's pronounced like pleats 🤷♂️
@@mackeffect6943
I always thought the plaid was the fancy bit some people have going over the shoulder
@TheDizastarmaster plaits. Plaid and plaits are different things.
@@mackeffect6943 Aye well there's no arguing with that 🤦😂
You sound just like my poor brother 😂
I think I have solved the issue of 'plait.' It can mean braiding, or pleating. I think the author of the book was talking about putting a decorative edge around the shortbread, much like pinching the edge on a pie crust, or using a fork to put a decorative trim on the edge. A lot of commercially made shortbread has a decorative trim such as a fork might make, and it looks pleated. I think that is what dear Mrs. MacIver was talking about.
My hairdresser came from Scotland. He described the New Year’s Day ritual as the “first fruiting”. The residents of a Village would walk next-door to their friends home carrying a bottle of whiskey. When admitted to the house the host would provide cakes and more whiskey. After 15 or 20 minutes, the guests would move onto the next house etc. The first fruiting was always conducted on foot for obvious reasons. Driving would be a terrible idea.
It's called "first footing" 😊
My grandfather who was from Ayr. He gave my mom a recipe that from his mother. The recipe called called for the dough to shaped into a rectangle before being cut into plaits and docked.
When I make the recipe, I use a high quality European style butter, preferably from grass fed cows. It makes a huge difference in the final shortbread.
Baking sweets and avoiding taxes, I can't imagine anything more Scottish.
Deep frying something lol
Playing bagpipes in the rain on the highlands.
I think she means means Pleating which I would take as crimping in modern lingo, as Plait in Scots refers to how a kilt is Pleated at the back. Other than that HAPPY HOGMANAY!
I agree, pleats are folds in eg a skirt
plaiting=braiding :)
Your Scottish accent invokes Alan Young's Scrooge McDuck! When you were reading the part about "cookies and baiks" it made me think of him in Mickey's Christmas Carol talking about all the foods in the story. This really has nothing to do with shortbread; I just wanted to share that on this almost a year old video. Happy holidays!
Ha! I love that. Also, great user name : )
Hmmm… petticoat tails. Might have nothing to do with ladies underwear. Men wore petite coats (vests) that had triangular tabs around the waist during the 16th to 18th centuries. 🧐
Lovely episode! My mother was born in the year 1920 and raised in Edinburgh. She would reminisce that as a child, her father (my grandfather), who was tall and dark-haired, was much in demand during Hogmanay. He would set out to visit all their friends and acquaintances that evening to be their 'first-footer' and was most certainly considered the best of luck!
I had always heard a tall, dark-haired man was the lucky first-footer for a home. Thanks for sharing that. I don't know any Gaelic, so Happy New Year.
My dad is similar- dark hair! I, meanwhile, have too red hair and am asked specifically to NOT enter a house until someone else does lol
Yeah, I live in the US, but we have a lot of old world superstitions in my family on my grandmother’s side. She was extremely particular about them too. The first person through the door HAD to be a man with, like said, dark hair and a dark complexion. She went so far as to push my mom or I out of the door if we dared try to step in first. lol We also have things like no linens washed in the first seven days, eat 12 grapes as the clock strikes midnight, all sorts of things. Now that the family is just my mom and I we can’t really keep up a lot of the traditions, but we do the ones we can. No men in our lives though, so we just don’t have anyone come in on the first day of the year. lol
@@nodruj8681 and my family had Romani, Native American, and several other races added in, so whatever the "original" was, ours had dark complexion as part of the tradition. Not to mention that traditions can vary from region to region, town to town, family to family. There’s a January Christmas tradition celebrated in the Outer Banks of NC that you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere else in America, but comes from the old world.
@@nodruj8681 plus, her first footer tradition came from her Irish side, not Scottish. And black Irish at that.
Thank you, Max! I'm reading a romance novel set in Scotland and the author mentions in passing one character learning how to make black buns and now I know what she meant, thanks to you.
My family is Scottish by heritage, and have kept a couple of the traditions alive for the past 200 years. One of those is the shape or the way that you present the shortbread. My grandmother taught us how to roll or "plait" the edges of the shortbread prior to baking so that it looked "ready for company". For lack of a better description, you just thin the edges out and roll them from the initial cut through the brick of short bread to the next cut, then take up from there until all the outside edges are rolled up in an edging. I do the same when making pasties to keep the filling from leaking out. I think the ovals they are talking about are much bigger than what you've made. My Grandmother and great grandmother made their's rather large, about a quarter of the dough, and then when scoring it, for easier breaking later, they would start the plaiting at the edge of one of the cuts and go around the edge, all the way back to the original start. I am teaching my granddaughters how to do it, but it's getting a lot harder to find anyone willing to take the time. The amount of butter seems to take it out of favor with the majority of the posterity these days.
Not me -- give me butter over vegetable shortening or margarine any day! Especially when you consider that such things are so processed, to where it's a mere molecule away from being plastic. Ugh! That's so *not* soul food. And to me, anything from my ancestors is soul food!
My ex-husband's family have a cookie recipe that has butter, cream cheese among other good ingredients. He always complained I didn't make it often enough. I told him once a year was enough because his family had a lot of heart problems among other things. He still grumbled but he really loved them once a year.
I’m Scottish and no one has showed me that, I’m very impressed. We just get the shortbread out the shops!
I would love to see photos or a video of how that's done! I make a lot of shortbread by popular request and I'd love to learn how to add such a traditional flair to it!
Can you teach us how to make it?
Thanks for your great series! I am a (US) historian of Scottish material & social culture, teach the Social History of Food and have made a modern, family shortbread recipe for decades. I’m highly intrigued by the use of boiled butter (rather than cold, solid butter creamed with the sugar>add the flour, etc.) and the use of yeast. That’s not at all modern, as you point out, but lots of classic "bread/cake" recipes used to use yeast. The boiled butter will indeed produce a totally different texture (also way easier to incorporate than creaming the butter and then incorporating the large amounts of flour: I always wrestle with the dough at that step of the process) as liquid fat means cold shortening coating is no longer coating each flour particle and isolating it from the other particles during the first stages of the baking. Your final product looked to have a laminar texture rather than a mass of individual particles/crumbs adhering together. As for the "plaiting," Celeste Sharratt’s comment makes sense. Another clue is in one of the historical descriptions you mentioned (~11:40 in), saying that the ends of the large, "sun" disk were twisted around the outside. I’ll definitely try this boiled butter/yeasted version. My family’s recipe, by the way is essentially "1 pound butter; 1 pound sugar & 1/2 pound sugar." …Yes, First Footing is still done and you preferably want a dark-haired (male) to come through your door first.
I just made shortbread cookies last week. They're the most requested Christmas cookies in our house. I like to make "thumbprint" shortbread and add a bit of jam to them. They're so addictive and it's easy to get carried away simply because they aren't overly sweet. I really want to try braiding the dough now. I think it could work and would be so pretty.
Reminds me of Fryske Dumpkes
That's the kind I make, too.
My granny used to do as you described but also made the same one , rolled in crushed walnuts that she called, bird's nests. :)
adopt me?
@@l.m.2404 my family makes those every year for Christmas! My favorite
I had learned (Grandmother was Scot), the the plait was the decorative edge you make as for pastry. Either ruffles like a petticoat tail, or done with a fork. The “ovals are rounds cut into sections, like triangles, then the bottom is pinched into a ruffle or pressed with a fork. I’m thinking the boiled butter gave the shortbread a more toasted flavour. Very interesting tho!
A possibility for the “plaiting:” It could be Mrs. MacIver’s version of petticoat tails. If you roll out the dough in a big circle, then cut slits all the way around, you could braid those slits, sideways, to follow the edge of the circle. I think. (Maybe that only makes sense in my head.)
That actually does make sense! I could see it in my mind as you were describing it. 😁
That would make it look somewhat like the sun disc shaped cakes of pagan times so it might have been a holdover from ancient times.
I THINK I KNOW HOW THESE WERE MAKE!!!! The whole cutting/pleating thing!!! Check out Danish 'kleiner' - they're these little deep fried twists, but to shape them, you roll the dough out flat, slit a hole in the middle of it, then pass one end of dough through the hole. It makes a sort of pleat.
Thank you! Glad I was not the only person whose mind went there!
Do love a good bit of shortbread. When I used to help my Gran make it we'd sometimes put in a snippet of lavender from the garden to perfume it. Though I preferred it in the Autumn when we'd been picking cobb [wild hazelnuts] nuts. They's be roasted off & we'd either have chopped cobbs or a solitary whole one on each piece. Still think my favourite with a pot of tea is a "Highlander" which is a wee round of shortbread that has the rim rolled in demerara sugar before baking.
Huzzah! My chattering away in the comments has paid off. Think you're the first non Scottish person to mention Black Bun in a video! I love the stuff. Can be a bit heavy & dry for some palates. Just make sure that you get good quality currants as as it's so dense with them if they have seeds in them the whole bun has a gritty texture.
I still make & take Black Bun as part of my first Footing. That whisky & salt... though I put the salt down to the Norwegian part of the family, it's always the gift for Hogmanay & whenever someone moves into a new house as it's bad luck to move salt from your old house to the new one.
Interesting! In Appalachia, some of the housewarming gifts to a new couple include salt (to sprinkle at the doorway so the Devil can't come in), a new broom (a new broom sweeps clean), bread, and a sweet. I usually put them all in a new mop bucket or a new waste basket.
@@DodiTov Interesting from my viewpoint too. Some of the other traditions are that the grate [fireplace] should be swept out & a new fire laid & lit for the new year [why we bring the lump of coal, for the new fire & to symbolise that the fire will burn through the coming year. The house should also be cleaned before new year. At midnight the front & back doors are opened, to let the new year in & the old one out; where the new broom comes in? Salt was also used as a cleanser for the house... I still clean my kitchen & chopping boards with salt to this day, & its well known as a barrier or cleanser. As salt absorbed dirt/evil, that's why you didn't take it to a new house... you'd be carrying old, bad things there.
Everyone should also have at least some coins in their pockets as how one starts the year is how you'll go through it. Also all bills & debts should be paid before the new year.
Really interesting to hear how many of the old traditions made it to the "new world", thank you.
If I remember correctly, there's a song from the Temperance Movement with the words, "We never eat cookies because they have yeast, and one little bite turns a man into beast! O can you imagine a greater disgrace, than a man in the gutter with crumbs on his face!" Your episode is the first time I've ever heard of yeast being used in cookies. Thanks for clearing up a wee mystery!
I just made shortbread yesterday! My go-to "recipe" is to use 1 part softened cultured butter, 2 parts sugar, and 3 parts flour. I'll also add a little vanilla. Cut it together with a pastry cutter until it is crumbly, shape it into a round and prick with a fork, then bake at 325 until it's just golden. If I'm feeling cheeky, I'll press pecans or chocolate chips on top before I bake or mix in some fresh rosemary with the dough. Such a simple, delicious treat.
Sounds simple! Are those parts weighed or scooped?
@@m.leesmith6157 I scoop-not sure if weighing would give you the right proportions, now that I think about it.
To be honest, I couldn't be bothered to get out a measuring cup yesterday and just eyeballed it...
Like a 1-2-3-4 caje, minus the eggs and leavening!
My exact recipe too!!
@@erinparavel1460 How do you scoop butter? Like, if you use a cup of butter in stick form do you then use two cups of sugar and three cups of flour?
A post Christmas Hard-Tack smack and a return of the hocky-pucks? I may have gotten nothing for Christmas; but this. This puts a smile on my face.
My family makes polish chrusciki and with those we make a diamond shape and cut a slice in the middle and then take the ends and gently pull them through the middle. This makes a lovely twisted appearance at both ends. Maybe this is what the author meant?
Sounds like our Swedish (and I'm assuming German etc) klenät! The shape is made in the exact same way.
Something along those lines, yes. To get a proper plait, look up tutorials for braided leather bracelets.
I concur, it sounds like you cut a slit in the center and twist through it.
I was thinking the same!
I agree, from the directions I was picturing the way Challah is braided, and looking at pictures of the process it seems like this is what the author was describing?
I make a fabulous shortbread, but I don't bake it like the methods you say. I roll out the dough and cut it into small bars, then bake. They're delicious!!!! My great aunt made them every Christmas and so I decided in the late 1980s, I would bring back the tradition of shortbread at Christmas. But...... I could not find a recipe that tasted like what the memory of what hers tasted like. I improvised and made additions to a recipe that I found which uses powdered / confectioners sugar.
The moment Max started talking about petticoats I started dreaming about his collar with Bernadette Banner or any other historical costuber. Is it just me or are they the same fandom? At least a little?
Same energy as the crossover between Bernadette and our lady Hildegard von Blingin'! That's the vibes I get at least.
i'm definitely a fan of both!
Oh indeed. Bernadette has educated me quite extensively on petticoats.
Oh yes, Bernadette, absolute fan crossover 💓
Defo!
The boiled butter is for salding the flour, but with butter instead of water. Flour scalding is also known as yudane in Asia, having made it from Europe to Japan a few hundred years ago. There is also the method of boiling the flour, known as water roux, which is also known as tangzhong in Asia. Although scalding the flour started in Europe, in was modified in Japan into boiling the flour (water roux), before making it back to europe.
Cut through the middle and plait it at the ends I think could be one of two things in my opinion, but not sure how well it would work with shortbread:
- cut lengthwise most of the way so you get 2 strands connected at one end, then braid those
- or, something my grandma used to do with donuts is to: make a cut/hole in the middle but not to the edge, then take one end and put it through the whole to create a lazy looking bow
You can even keep it connected as both ends, and still braid it.
Maybe a cut down the middle of the oval, but not through the ends? Then give the dough a twist so it looks like a plait.
Call me juvenile, but I LOVE the clip of you smacking the hardtack rounds together - the look on your face really sells it :D Please please never get rid of that clip, and keep working it in every couple of months! Happy holidays to you and your husband and y'alls families!
In the little northern German village I used to live in, we had a very drunken kind of "first footing" for New Year: around lunch time (give people some sleep after New Year's Eve), a neighbor would come to your door with a bottle of grain brandy, you had a drink together, then all moved on to another neighbor (with more bottles), until in late afternoon whole crowds stormed your living room (depending on which end of the street you lived), and half the village was fairly drunk... 😃
This, is freakin awesome.
That sounds fun.
Sign me up!
I SCREAMED!!! I'm a McVicar, and MacIver is one of several alternative spellings (because almost every name from those days has many multiple spellings, like Hogmany). If I'm not related to her I'm at least from the same clan. It's not a super common name so I was pleasantly surprised.
And we have an old Scottish Shortbread cookie recipe that was passed to my grandmother (born 1910) from her best friend's father, Willie Matheson, who had a Scottish bakery in my city 100ish years ago. His recipe was pretty much 1/3 sugar, 1/3 butter, and 1/3 flour (and a little of the flour is rice flour, which adds a nice texture).
I love the way you look when your trying to explain how the food taste and texture. My grandmother always used the shortbread for for pie crust and what we called dip sticks. You dip them in pudding, icecream and stuff like that. Good job on tackling this recipe.
I've had shortbreads dipped in warm vanilla custard, which is fabulous even with the instant custard mix.
@@judeirwin2222 I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to insult anybody.
@@katherinewolfe that sounds lovely.
@@texaschrissy1985 don’t worry, no one is offended 😊 it’s true though - dipstick is an insult in the UK (unsure why). Funny how the same words mean different things around the world!
@@shellshocked7620 Thank you.it is funny, as I grew up I learned it the stick to check your oil with in your vehicle. Lol
“I could probably eat these”
I love this channel
Never would have imagined that an episode on shortbread would include calling Mary Queen of Scots the Beyoncé of Stuarts and also referencing Shaun of the Dead. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
I love this channel. I think I started watching at about 200K followers and everything about it makes me smile, from the Pokemons to the recipes to Max's brilliance. All I can say is "Here's to 2022!"
I'm moving to Edinburgh next September for Grad school so I'm used to the random Scottish accent (thanks to my husband). I'm definitely going to have to make this recipe this weekend. Thanks for sharing!!
I think we will be visiting in September actually
@@TastingHistory That's awesome! If you decide to do a meet up, I'll definitely be there! 😁
@@TastingHistory Good on you! I immensely love Scotland and Ireland, and I am always happy for the people who get to visit them. I hope to visit again, too, as soon as possible.
@@TastingHistory Yay! I'm in South Queensferry, just outside Edinburgh, at the south end of all three bridges that cross the Forth. It's a ridiculously pretty village, a world heritage UNESCO site and has some gorgeous wee coffee shops, you should come visit us!
Things I recommend as an Edinburger: get a fish supper with salt n sauce from a proper chippy, a can of Irn Bru too! Always queue when you’re waiting for a bus, or you’ll get some angry looks. You’re now Scottish. Also is it Edinburgh University you’re going to?
oh my Gosh, please keep using the "hardtack" flashback - I love it SO much!!!
"Put on the skillet, put on the lid, Max is gonna cook some shortnin bread"
Ha,ha,ha good one!
Now I am Hearing that song in my head.
@@teyjahxaveriss6270 me too! oh Lawd! mammas lil baby loves shawtnin, shawtnin......
I had to interrupt this video to go and find a rendition of the song. It turns out, my wife had never heard it, so that was a win.
The way it melts in your mouth is my favorite thing about my grandmas traditional shortbread recipe, which she says Must be made with cold butter....which makes it very difficult to make 😵💫 BUT ITS DELIGHTFUL
YES! I CAN WATCH THIS WHILE COOKING! And shortbread too, one of my favourites!
I loved my great grandmother's Shortbread with current jam and a cup of strong hot tea. She would always have all three ready for me when I returned home from school. It's very comforting to me because it reminds me of my childhood.
I love the joy you bring to your work. Excuse me for saying so but sir, you sparkle. Your channel is my happy place. Happy New Year and thank you for the wholesome content!
NO ONE segues into their sponsors as seamlessly as Max-while slipping them into the recipe/finished product he's making Delightful!
Just the name alone had me clicking and commenting. Now I get to see exactly what the hell this stuff is! Happy NY Max and Jose and I truly enjoy the videos. Actually have made a couple.
I've studied actually the derivations of Scottish shortbread, spritz, Danish and Norwegian butter cookies since the recipes are so so similar. Thank you for filling in one of my suspected branches - the Scottish Shortbread Victorian era (with an egg) which is what a spritz cookie recipe is. I LOVE Butter cookies - no matter where their origin is. It would be such a neat history lesson to do a 'family tree' of these recipes...... Especially when did Almond was introduce as a flavor, and how did the temperature become the factor of how these became different cookies. AND my Scottish Husband loved the Hogmanay part -- tomorrow we start our feasts of fun.
In Transylvania, we have a dessert called ciurighele. In the recipe, it is said that you must cut the flattened dough in rectangles and then you make a cut (an incision) in the middle of each piece. You finish them by taking one or two corners and you pass them through the incision resulting in a somehow braided appearance. Maybe this is similar to what Mrs Machiver was referring
A winter celebration beginning with "Hog-" and the tradition like First Footing is REALLY making me miss Terry Prachett. And now I am also really craving shortbread but too sick to make it any time soon. :(
I love shortbread ❤ I snuck shortbread and lemon oolong tea into the theater when I saw Emma.
Yes, please make some black bun. I love to learn about any cool historical recipe from my Scotch-Irish roots. I will have to try a small batch of your shortbread to go with our traditional black eyed pea new year's lunch. Happy New Year to you and the family from Texas! ❤
You are amazing Max! You give us a real peek into the past via food and you have a love of language. Your research is impressive. LOVE your work❣️🥰
I appreciate your honesty in describing the glue like structure in the mouth.
Wonderful video! And I really liked that you played Auld Lang Syne at the end, the perfect Scottish song for the occasion!
This is one of the channels with the highest quality and also very entertaining.
It's like eating glue...but in a good way. I snorted and laughed out loud. Fantastic episode Max!
About adding cream to coffee. I do too. And make my coffee a little strong,so the flavor comes through the cream.
watching your vids with my mom is always a highlight of my week
Hey Max! Like many others have commented I think she was describing a large oval with partial cuts through for ease of separating after baking. Then the "plaiting the ends" means pleating or pinching the outside edge of the oval into shape much like the edge of a pie crust.
I remember getting Scottish shortbread around Christmas, so yummy and yes it turns to paste in your mouth. I don't think it is the yeast that made that textural change from what you are used to but... All the butter! Specially that it is boiling when added to the flour so starts cooking it while separating each grain of flour. There is no gluten development partially because of the lack of kneading but also because of this.
Happy New Year to you, Jose and the cats!
I just had an Epiphany, why Sir Terry Pratchett called discworld's Santa Claus the Hogfather, and Christmas Hogswatch.
I bet hardtack was in the dwarfs' arsenal of pastry and bread weaponry
Dwarf bread is the Platonic ideal of hardtack.
"It's like eating glue... I'm a good way." Lolol happy new year! And still more prosperity and success to you in the new one.
Man, I can't wait for the Hardtack commemoration episode. Truly, the undying bread.
Also, I do hope than next Hogmanay you make that dense, black substance, inimical to life, wrapped in its pastry hell (best propaganda ever).
Shortbread, or as a South Yorkshire friend with thick Yoarkshair accent would call it, "coughbread", is wild; for oh, how bad you could choke on it if you had no drink to wash it down! Bad call on my part, not drinking something when trying it for the first time.Tasty, though. Goes great with Earl Gray.
And now I need a cup of tea.
Happy new year to you, Max, and may more arcane recipes come your way. Your takes on them are all delightful. Bedight with your wit as they are.
Just found your channel, and it reminds me of of my Mum's parents who came to the States in 1923 from the Clydebank part of Scotland and my Mum was a first generation American. All kinds of customs and holiday traditions were passed along.
Grandma used to make it into cakes that were docked and scored into 'fingers' for ease of serving. She wrapped her cakes in waxed paper and kept them in a tin in her pantry. I used to love how it would melt in my mouth, and was often known to break off pieces to hoard in my "secret box of goodies" tucked under a loose floorboard in my room.
My Grandpa always said not to trust a woman with warm hands as the butter would melt while rubbing the ingredients together while making her shortbread. Your video warmed my heart ❤️. Thanks for the memories.
Liked and Subscribed, too.
Thanks for winding up the year with the hardtack reference! 😂 Wondering if her reference to "plaiting" isn't just the twists on the outside edges... ? And it's a good thing you're already married. No shortbread crumbs in your hair. I can see why that tradition faded away (or at least, I hope it did, lol). Much appreciation for all you do. Holiday blessings to you & José! Looking forward to more TH adventures in 2022... 💖🎉
"It's like eating glue...in a good way" is probably the funniest thing I've ever heard you say. 😂😂 I love the way you always strive for the positive.
Hi Max! I made this this morning after watching yesterday. Halved your recipe and left almost all the sugar in. Mine taste like pie pastry (which I happen to love) and still not too sweet! Awesome experience, much gratitude!
Love the hard tack and now all the old westerns and pioneer and those old one talk about hardtack and it reminds me of you hitting 2 hardtacks together, keep it up Max, we love your videos.
Absolutely fantastic video. Thank you from an American living in Scotland. BTW: Edinburgh, when said by a Scot, sounds like En-brr-uh. Glasgow, on the other hand, sounds like Glesca. Another BTW... shortbread is beast eaten with a dram of single malt whisky.
First-footing is still popular in rural Angus. Tall, dark visitors are best but they must come with a cake (shortbread usually), a dram (always whisky), and a piece of coal for the fire. Their arrival usually signals the start of a session of drunken revelry that takes most of New Year's day to recover from. This recovery is aided by the lavish application of "Christmas Cake" (fruitcake) that has been well soaked with brandy and allowed to cure for anywhere from three months to a year.
Happy new year Max, Jose, Cersi & Jaime!
Also, laughing so hard at your comparison with Mary queen of Scot’s and Beyoncé 😂
I am Scottish! I loved your old fashioned version of a scottish accent, it made me laugh 😂😂😂😀😁❤️🥰. I moved away from Scotlamd 20 years ago so I am not sure if people still follow that tradition, i am from the countryside though.
It's weird how I'm pretty sure I've had this yeasted version as a child. As soon as you broke the biscuit and took a bite, I knew immediately how it tasted. When you said it was like "glue" I knew for sure I'd had it before. It's a very pleasant glue-y texture. I remember sucking on it to get the butter flavor from it. I haven't had it since I was a child and I have no idea when or where it came from or the circumstance but I know I have had it before.
I'm almost certain my great grandmother used to make it that way and I do remember my mother always being so frustrated that she could never get her "traditional" shortbread recipes to come out like her grandmother's. Now I know why!
My family is a mix of about half Irish and half Scot. We have always included these in our holiday treats. The way we have always eaten them is similar to biscotti, but because they crumble so easily, you take a bite and then a mouthful of tea, coffee, wine, etc. and hold it in your mouth and let them dissolve - heavenly. Gran and some will break off a piece and put it on their spoon that is filled with their drink, wait a bit and then eat, then another sip of drink. BTW, taking a bite and then a mouthful of drink and waiting to swallow is also how I eat biscotti, as I get tired or the biscotti falling in my drink and having to fish it out. Love your channel.
You made me nervous 😬 thinking they aren’t making shortbread any “longer” …. Nice one! 😂
As a note about the 'First Footers' you mention, as a sort of good luck thing my sister and I always leave the house at 11:55 on new year's night, and bring in a box of shortbread just after midnight. Best to get the good luck in quickly.
One thing to help you on 1600 and before english documents would be to be in mind of the great vowel shift. For example, plait would have been pronounced pleat. This is the ripple, like you do with fingers or a fork.
If you "pleat" or crimp the edges of a circle of shortbread, the way you would finger-crimp the edge of a homemade pie crust, I think that's the effect they're looking for.
Whoever does your CC is just fantastic!
Jose does! Every episode :)
@@TastingHistory He's phenomenal! We love the little inserts he does for humor or sometimes the weirder pronunciation words.
There is a cookie from India that is flour, melted ghee and powdered sugar. Seasoned with ground cardamom then baked. They are so yummy. It’s amazing how similar or even the same ingredients put together differently can end up so different.
Considering how long the UK colonized India, I’m not surprised there is some crossover.
This Indian cookie sounds spectacular
I love when you throw the hardtack (clack clack) clip into the videos. It makes me laugh every time. ❤️😁
Happy New Year, little Shaymin in the background. And a lovely rendition of "Auld Lang Syne" for you, Max and José. Shortbread cookies/biscuits are not my ideal choice for accompanying tea, never mind at Christmas or New Year's. But I will eat them over their derivative sugar cookies, with or without decorative icing. Oat cakes/oat biscuits, and the more recognized oatmeal raisin cookies, are my favorite tea time biscuits.
Here's a lesson in the dough. Cut a slit in the oval you make. Along the length, about half the length of the oval of dough. lift one end, feed it through the slit, do so again. A bit of flour on your knife and hands will make it easier. That's what that one is. Two twists, and don't flatten it afterward. I love everything you do.
Oh, there are several Scottish dishes that might be worth a look from an historical point of view. The Barley Bannock, Skirlie, Stovies and, of course, Haggis. You might also want to look into Christmas Cake and Black Pudding as they are crucial to understanding the idea of Scottish conviviality.
Thanks, Max, for a great year of superb content. May you and your partner have a glorious New Year.
I had a thought about the shaping, that you were stumped about. I have some recipes where you cut it, but leave it in place on the sheet pan then bake it like it’s whole. Then break it apart after cooking. The slices should snap apart at the cut lines. The braiding is most likely like a pasty, roll the edges over to make it look pretty.
or can watch this great way they do leather at (ua-cam.com/video/bCEC4d-KaQU/v-deo.html)
Yup, Scot here - I would do exactly that.
I figured it was braided in a similar way to those leather bracelets. Split the middle and braid, turning the end inside out to release the twist until you reach the bottom.
Hey Max,
I wanted to say thank you for your show. My daughter (she's 5) loves watching you before bed and though she usually falls asleep before the end, she too absolutely loves your show. Her and I watch it at bedtime and usually she fights to go to sleep but since I've been asking her "want to watch Tasting History before bed?" She gets really excited and doesn't fight bedtime at all.
Thanks again and I hope you have a happy New Year.
Greatly appreciating this episode, partly from Scots pride and the other part because so many people in the world are being so nasty right now, that shutting myself up in my apartment and making some shortbread is a lil' blessing. Thank you, Max.
Use been home sick with the plague again and this channel has been all I've been watching. Thank you for this channel, and also.....the hard tack bit never gets old ❤
LOVED this episode. I've got a 3lb tin of Walkers that we're working on at the moment. So I will try this after them. Lol I'm very interested in this though, using yeast sou d intriguing. When you were eating it I thought of madelines for some reason. Kind of reminded me of them. And that hard tac clip is legendary!!! So when I bake your shortbread and someone asks for the recipe I can say oh its something I just MacGiver'ed together. 😅
Intrigued, I set about to make this shortbread.
I cut the recipe back to 1/4 of the recipe given, as I did not want to waste ingredients. I allowed the butter to brown slightly (as in Finnish brown butter cookies) and cooled to warm before adding to flour, then mashed it into the flour with the flat of a wooden spoon until all globules of butter were broken down into what would be comparable to when cutting butter into flour, not sand like, but rather, small peas.
Then I added the yeast mixture (allowed to stand 30 minutes and nice and foamy). The mixture seemed to dry, and I wasn't quite sure if I had gotten the butter ration correct, so to the 2 tbsp of butter previously incorporated, I added one more (melted).
The mixture was still quite dry seeming, so I added a tbsp of buttermilk (as this reminds me of a scone recipe).
The mixture then gathered well into a ball and I allowed it to sit for two hours, until puffy, rolled it into a round, (thin) and cut as for petticoats, finished the wide edge with a pleat, pricked through and baked at 320 for 20 min. (convection heat).
The result was a crispy outside (nicely browned) and flaky interior with a pleasant, mildly buttery, flavour. Next time, I will not separate the petticoat tails, as I did (the points browned quickly), and I will roll the dough thicker. I believe the thinness of my roll correlated with the reduction in time. This product (cookie, biscuit?) was not gummy at all when eaten.