Vanilla and Strawberry Shortbread

I've always fancied making some multicoloured biscuits but never quite got round to it. So, today was the day I embarked on this challenge. These biscuits are perfect for summer, marrying a delicate vanilla flavour with that of strawberry milkshake. They may seem complicated, but in fact were really simple to make. It may seem really tedious chilling the dough so many times, and if you have a cold kitchen and cold hands then you may be able to skip this step, but it helps them to keep their shape and makes the dough easier to handle. If you fancy changing up the flavours you could make the dough as per the vanilla recipe and use different extracts (eg. coffee, rose water, orange blossom), could add spices like cinnamon or could make them chocolatey with some cocoa powder. This is a basic recipe that you can make your own. 

Recipe - Makes 24

For the vanilla dough:

• 40g margarine, softened
• 20g caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 50g plain flour
• 10g semolina

For the strawberry dough:

• 40g margarine, softened
• 20g caster sugar
• 10g strawberry milkshake powder (eg. Nesquik)
• Pink food colouring
• 50g plain flour
• 10g semolina

Start by making the vanilla dough. Put the margarine and caster sugar into a bowl and cream using a whisk until soft. Tip in the flour, semolina and vanilla extract and mix gently to combined, bringing it together into a soft ball of dough, being careful not to knead it. Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge.

Next, make the strawberry dough in the same way, but whisk the strawberry milkshake powder and pink food colouring into the creamed margarine and sugar before adding the flour. Bring together and wrap in clingfilm, then chill.

After about 30 minutes, remove from the fridge and roll each piece of dough out to about 5mm thick (doing this between two pieces of clingfilm can make it easier), then using a 6cm diameter circular cookie cutter, cut out rounds from each of the doughs. Re-roll a couple of times if required to use it all. Lay the pieces out on two sheets of baking paper then chill again for 10 minutes in the fridge. 

Remove the sheets of circles of dough from the fridge and use a sharp knife to cut each round into 8 triangles. Remove alternate triangles from each of the circles (take out 4) and replace with triangles of the opposite colour. Chill again for 10-15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 170C. Remove the multicoloured dough rounds from the fridge and use the circular cutter to neaten the outside edges then a small flower cutter (or other shape) to cut out the centre. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until firm and just starting to brown. Remove from the oven, leave to cool on the tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.