Ground Elder Shortbread Recipe (vegan)
Do you have Ground Elder (Aegopodium podagraria ), also called herb gerard, bishop's weed, goutweed or gout wort, growing in your garden? Have you tried everything to get rid of it? Why not eat it! At least then you could appreciate it for all its herby goodness.
The traditional and simple way is to use it instead of parsley as a salad garnish or in cooking. Though if, like me, you have a sweet tooth, you may want to try making these. It's a straight forward recipe, quick, cheap and they last well, once made.
Ground Elder Shortbread Recipe
An unusual recipe that uses the stems and leaves of ground elder to give an edge of green and a little pungent twist to these simple biscuits. They keep well once made too.
Makes about 40
Ingredients
- 250 g plain flour
- 25 g golden granulated sugar
- 35 g ground elder stem sugar
- 1/2 tbsp cornflour
- 160 ml light olive oil or sunflower oil
For the sugar dusting
- 1 dessertspoon unrefined icing sugar
- 1 dessertspoon dried ground elder leaves
In a large bowl stir together the flour, sugars and cornflour. Blend in the oil and massage to form a moist dough. Place in the bowl, cover tightly (I like to use a wax wrap over the bowl rather than clingfilm) and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. At this stage you can leave it for a couple of days until you're ready to bake.
Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas mark 4 and line a couple of large baking trays with baking paper. Lightly flour a clean surface and roll out the dough to out 3 mm thickness. Use a 6 cm biscuit cutter and, using a flat knife, move the cut biscuits onto the baking paper. Re-roll and cut the dough until you've used it all (or all you can).
Bake for around 15 minutes, or until golden. Leave for 5 minutes in the tray before moving to a cooling rack. Leave to cool before dusting with the icing sugar.
To make the icing sugar: Dry the leaves in a warm place, a switched off but still warm oven or a dehydrator. Use a spice, nut or coffee grinder to blitz them into a fine powder and stir well into the icing sugar.
[…] Scrape off the sugar and allow to cool. Weigh the candied stem sugar and ad the same amount of sugar to a spice blender and blend to a powder with the candied stems. Use in Ground elder shortbreads. […]