Shortbread - Substitute for Rice Flour?

[LittleSpirit02]

I'm trying to make chocolate shortbread but my recipe calls for a 1/2 cup of rice flour which I can't find. What can I substitute for it? Would cake flour work? I've never used it but looked a little online and one site mentioned cake flour instead of rice flour.

[ElenitaB]

My recipe for shortbread uses neither rice nor cake flour... plain old AP flour is what we use in this house. Check out the recipes on the King Arthur Flour site.

[faline]

Cake flour was also mentioned when I checked for substitutions. I've used cake flour but never as a substitution as you indicate.

It does appear that rice flour is available on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/home.html)

[Dulcee]

Hmmm I've only ever made shortbread with regular old all purpose white flour.

Rice flour is generally used as a gluten free substitute.

[LittleSpirit02]

Thanks for your advice everyone! :)

Here's what the recipe calls for....

8 ounces unsalted butter
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder

Then chocolate bits and more confectioners sugar to top it off after baking.

Am I best off trying to substitute rice flour with 1/2 cup cake flour, regular flour, nothing.... or just get a new recipe? lol.

They're all basic ingredients minus the rice flour so I suppose if I tried it one way and it didnt work, it wouldnt be hard to remake...

[Dulcee]

If you'd like another suggestions...

Here's the chocolate shortbread recipe I've always used. I believe I found it in a Martha Stewart cookbook originally.

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

I combine it all in a food processor then just press out into a round cake pan or glass baking dish. Bake 30 minutes at 300 degrees F.

Word of warning, if you under cook shortbread it will just crumble and break when you try to cut it into cookies, so make sure the dough is firm before removing it from the oven.

Happy Baking

[KEYONNAH]

Have you tried looking in the healthfood stores?

[BrerGnat]

Any "healthy" supermarket will sell rice flour, although it's not necessary for making shortbread. Whole Foods, or similar type store will definitely have rice flour. Our local chain even sells it in the "organic/healthy eating" aisle.

I'd just find a recipe that doesn't call for it.

[garymacd]

Here is my recipe for shortbread; and when I say mine, I stole it from my mother, but she lied to me when I took it, so I had to figure it out.

Keep in mind that I use this recipe for putting the dough through a cookie press, so it may be different for you.

1 pound of butter
5 cups of sifted flour
1 cup of white sugar
1 splash of clear vanilla extract
Green and red food colouring

Cream the butter and sugar until smooth.
Add vanilla extract.
Sift 5 cups of flour.
Then sift again as you add it to the creamed butter and sugar. Do not use the entire 5 cups you originally sifted. Only add 5 cups of resifted flour
Add the flour little by little until mixture is smooth.

At this point I have to say that the only time we make this is at Christmas time, so we divide the mixture into three parts.
Colour one part with green food colouring.
Colour another part with red food colouring.
Take parts of each colour, layer them together, twist and put it into the cookie press.

Bake at 300 F for about 10 minutes just until the edges start turning slightly golden brown.

We found that Mum's original recipe used six cups of flour, and she didn't mention the sifting. All we got was a sticky mess that wouldn't go through the press or would stick to it. It would probably work really nicely for something you want to roll out and add chocolate chips to.

Sifting made a great difference, and reducing the flour to 5 cups made it a whole lot less frustrating. Then, my Mum said, "Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that."

If you have gluten allergies, you can find gluten free flour. I don't know if it will hold together or not.

One lesson we did learn: don't substitute margarine for butter. What a waste of time and resources!