Imagine your favourite shortbread. I bet it's crisp, buttery and melts in your mouth. Let's be honest, it's probably from M&S.
Well that shortbread - your favourite shortbread - is about to look about as appetising as a soggy digestive biscuit steadily disintegrating at the bottom of a cup of tea.
It's a bold claim I know, but the recipe below is for the best shortbread in the whole wide world, probably even the universe. I've made it virtually every Christmas since I was in Primary School, and I know I'll continue to make it until I can no longer physically roll out the dough. Even then I'll probably find a way. It's the type of recipe you pass down to your children and rave about to everyone you know, and at over 100 years old it's definitely deserving of the word 'classic'.
I've tried what feels like a million shortbread recipes, but none have ever come close to this one from Victorian cookery writer, Mrs Isabella Beeton.
