Secret family recipes

Shorbread
Old family recipes are handled down from mother to daughter. Well, I am the youngest son and had to fight for this recipe. Luckily, my grandmother made it while an overly clerical church lady recorded all of the steps.

This 5-ingredient recipe is considered delicate and time-consuming.

Ingredients:
	1-lb.	454 g	Butter
	1-tsp.	5 ml	pure vanilla extract
	1¼-Cup	285 mL	fruit sugar (no less)
	6-cups	1.5 L	cake and pastry flour
	3-tbsp.	45 mL	rice flour
Tools:	a large mixing bowl
	a cookie sheet
	a large spoon
	a spatula
	a sieve
	2-cup measuring cup
	1-cup measuring cup
	a teaspoon
	a tablespoon
	a fork
	a knife
Optional:	a glass of your favorite BEvERage

Let the butter warm to room temperature. If you normally wear a sweater, your room is not warm enough. Don’t even think of using the oven, microwave, or stovetop to warm the butter.

Preheat oven to 275°F/135°C.

Sift 1¼ cups of fruit sugar into 1 pound of warm butter

Use a large spoon to mix to the sugar and butter until the clumps become a well-blended paste. At this stage it is important to know that if you lick your fingers, you must wash and dry your hands immediately before proceeding.

Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla and blend well with a large spoon. Continue to sift in 3 tablespoons of rice flour.

½-cup at a time, sift in the 6 cups of cake and pastry flour. Fold in with a spatula.

When your girly man arms are too weak to continue to fold with the spatula, use your fingers to break the clumps into pebbles. Continue to sift in the cake and pastry flour, ½-cup at a time. By the way, that's pebbles, not sand. If it takes only 5 or 5½ cups to get to pebbles, then stop there.

Gather the pebbles into large clumps (but, I just...) and gently spread out onto cookie sheet using a large spoon. Use a fork to poke holes into the shortbread all the way to the bottom of the cookie sheet. The holes should be no less than ¼" apart. Reduce oven to 200°F/95°C and bake for 1 hour. Keep close watch or it will overcook like mine (Mmm, dog biscuits). Cut immediately into rectangles, and let cool.