I’d made a chocolate short crust pastry for chocolate custard tart recipe I blogged exclusively for subscribers – Don’t worry if you aren’t one yet. Sign up and you’ll receive it in the next couple of newsletters if you missed out! Anyway, not one to waste a dirty thermomix bowl, I wondered about another quick thing I could mix up to save a bowl washing. These biscuits were thus born. Now, you absolutely don’t need a thermomix for these. Some beaters, a food processor or even the old school method of pinching butter through flour, will all do just fine to bring these little gems to life. They were such a delicious treat to enjoy with hubby, a movie and a cup of tea last night. Don’t be discouraged by the 4 flour approach. You will get so many batches out of the four ‘bags’. Each flour does something different to make this work so beautifully, so apart from a couple of suggested variations in the recipe for various diets, I would stick to the measures for the best results.
You can use this as a sweet short crust pastry. It’s nearly identical to my lemon custard tart pastry or my sticky pecan and hazelnut tart ... Not to get you side tracked or anything. Once you’ve got this pastry nailed, it is a go-to-wo 30 minute exercise before the kettle’s boiled and you’ve got your feet up with a bikkie!
Real Treats. Happy bodies. Let me know here, how you enjoy them.
A little reminder: Treats are treats! This isn’t an everyday thing and just because it’s a wholefood recipe, doesn’t mean we can eat 10! Savour, eat slowly, and enjoy every bite of these for a delicious treat and park your guilt in the past. It’s not welcome anymore. You’re doing nothing wrong. xx
Vanilla Bean Short Bread Biscuits Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cup tapioca flour (120g)
- 1/3 cup almond meal (30g)
- 2 heaped tsp coconut flour (20g)
- 1/2 cup buckwheat flour, rice flour or sorghum flour (plus a little more for dusting your hands when pressing out the pastry into the tart shell) (45g)
- 1 pc egg
- 150 g butter (OR GHEE OR sustainable palm shortening if you can get access to it and are vegan) Ideal scenario is that it’s REALLY COLD, so I pop mine in the freezer while I’m getting everything else together, to bring the temp down a little.
- 1 pod vanilla or teaspoon vanilla bean powder
- 100 g coconut sugar (this is not a fructose free recipe, but very very low in the scheme of the recipe on the whole and compared to other cookie recipes)
Instructions
Variations
- You can sub the buckwheat for sorghum flour. I’ve done that and it is perfect. You can sub the almond meal and increase the buckwheat and tapioca by 15g each making it NUT FREE You can sub the butter for GHEE to make it cassein free. It will be more crumbly but hey… Better than none at all, right? You can sub egg for a teaspoon chia bran + tablespoon water mix You can sub coconut sugar for xylitol if diabetic You can sub coconut sugar for rice malt syrup for a fructose free version. Just up your coconut flour by 1 tablespoon to soak that moisture. I can’t guarantee it will work with more than 1 substitution combination of the above list. If it does please do let me know so I can let others know!
What to do
- Pop all flours and coconut sugar in food processor or thermomix and pulse to combine and aerate (3 secs, speed 5 for TM users / about 5 seconds for Food Processor)
- Add chilled ‘fats’ of choice
- Pulse until a wet sand vibe is achieved (3 seconds on speed 6 for TM users / about 5 secs in a food processor)
- Whisk your egg and vanilla bean together in a bowl
- Add about 2/3 of this mixture slowly over 3-4 seconds into the processor. Has it gone to clumpy texture? You’re done. Has it not? Add the rest and pulse another 3 seconds.
- No Waste tip: Save the leftovers of the egg mixture if you have any, for a batch of French toast or to pop in a pikelet batter – there, I’ve given you an excuse to make the perfect pikelets from my book!
- Spatula out the cookie dough onto unbleached parchment paper and shape roughly into a ball.
- Pop in fridge for 20 minutes to make it more workable, as at this stage, it will be a little wet.
- Preheat oven to 180C / 350F fan forced OR 200C / 400F non fan forced oven.
- Take out of fridge and fan a little flour (not coconut) onto some parchment and turn the dough into a cookie ‘log’ shape.
- You could try cutting your biscuits straight away, or to make it easier, pop back into fridge for another 20 minutes. A nice firm log is easiest to cut perfect little discs from.
- Then cut discs and pop on baking tray. There’s plenty of butter in the recipe, so no need to butter the parchment.
- Bake for 15 minutes on 200C / 400F or until golden brown. They will firm up as they cool. so as long as you have those deep golden hues, you are ready to rock!
- Let them cool. Pop in a pretty bowl. Enjoy with good friends and tea.
- PRO TIP: Make a couple of batches one after the other and roll into logs and ‘candy twist’ the edcges and pop in the freezer. This way you have a batch of dough ready to go for when kiddies pop over or friends are around for tea. No stress. No prep, just defrost 10 minutes, get a sharp knife, slice and bake.
Comments 9
These look fantastic. I don’t have any buckwheat or sorghum flour any thing else I could use?
Author
You could just slightly increase all other 3 🙂
Hi Alexx, love your inspiration for healthy living. Thanks for all recipes etc. I was also wondering about making these grain free, could you increase the other flours perhaps? Thanks in advance
Author
Thanks and you’re super welcome! There aren’t any grains in this? What do you have trouble with Clare?
You say shortbread…I say, jump! For joy. For the love of GF biscuits! Thanks for another mouthwatering recipe. Love your work!
Author
Awesome. So glad you enjoyed them x
Hi Alexx, me again following the RPAH elim diet, just wondering about a sub for the coconut flour, and I will have to replace the sugar with RMS. And I assume cashew meal will work as well as almond? Thanks! x
Hi Rachel – I’d add 30g to the almond meal and 20g to the tapioca measurements, to ditch the coconut. Cashew meal should be fine, yes x
Hi Alexx wanting to make Easter short bread with kids. Would this roll out ok to then use cookie cutters? And what do you recommend for decorating with? Cheers Emma. X