Paul Hollywood's Tantallon Cakes Recipe

Extract taken from Paul Hollywood’s British Baking, published by Bloomsbury, £25, hardback
Photography © Peter Cassidy

Ingredients

• 100 g unsalted butter, softened
• 100g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting (optional)
• 1 large egg yolk
• Grated zest of ½ lemon
• 100g plain flour
• 100g cornflour
• ¼ tsp bicarbonate soda

Method

1. Beat the butter and icing sugar together until light and fluffy in a bowl, then beat in the egg yolk, followed by the lemon zest.
2. Sift the flour, cornflour and bicarbonate of soda together. Stir them into the butter and sugar mixture a spoonful at a time, then bring the mixture together into a dough and knead briefly until smooth.
3. Line 2 baking trays with baking parchment. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to a 5mm thickness. Using a 6.5cm fluted cutter, stamp out rounds and place them on the lined baking trays, pressing the trimmings together and re-rolling them to make more biscuits as necessary.
4. Prick the biscuits all over with a fork and chill for 30 minutes; this helps prevent them spreading in the oven. Heat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4.
5. Bake the biscuits for 10-12 minutes, until they are just starting to colour. Leave them on the baking trays for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Dust with icing sugar before serving, if you like.