Honey Pistachio Shortbread

Shortbread is a beloved staple of British afternoon tea and a festive favourite at Christmas time. Flecked with green, these honey pistachio shortbread biscuits have the classic crumbly and melt-in-the mouth texture you’d expect from a traditional shortbread recipe. However, the addition of pistachios provides a delightful and welcome chewiness. They’re just what you need to accompany a bowl of ice cream or fruity summer dessert.

When I need biscuits in a hurry, it’s to shortbread I usually turn. It’s reliable, easy to make, not too sweet and always delicious. It also requires store cupboard ingredients and no eggs, so it’s brilliant if you don’t have a shopping trip planned any time soon. Sadly, it’s so good, it never lasts long in our house.

Dive Right In

• Why Make Honey Pistachio Shortbread?
• Honey Pistachio Shortbread
• Ingredients And Substitutions
• How To Make Honey Pistachio Shortbread
• Other Shortbread Recipes You Might Like
• Keep In Touch
• The Recipe

Why Make Honey Pistachio Shortbread?

The combination of the classic melt-in-the-mouth texture with the slight chewiness of pistachios and the flavour of honey, makes this shortbread recipe a real winner. If you need further encouragement, here are some good reasons as to why you’ll want to make my honey pistachio shortbread biscuits (cookies).

Easy to Make – Shortbread is one of the most straightforward biscuits to make. The only thing to look out for is not to overwork the dough. This can turn your wonderful homemade bakes into tough biscuits with a cardboardy texture.

Flavour Twist – The blend of sweet aromatic honey and nutty pistachios creates a delightful flavour that makes this shortbread recipe stand out from the crowd. It’s an enticing Middle Eastern twist on a classic British staple.

Nutritious Twist – Shortbread probably isn’t the healthiest snack to go for, although it does contain a lot less sugar than most biscuits. However, these honey pistachio bakes benefit from a dose of healthy pistachios, honey and brown rice flour. These three ingredients make them a more nutritious option than traditional shortbread.

Perfect for Gifting – Whether you stamp out rounds, hearts, stars or any other shape, these biscuits have an elegant form. This combined with their excellent flavour and keeping qualities makes them a perfect homemade gift.

Versatile Treat – Whip out a tin of these biscuits for afternoon tea, picnics and potlucks and you’ll make everyone very happy. Enjoy them as a stand alone snack, pair them with a cup of tea or coffee or serve alongside summer desserts like ice cream, blackcurrant fool, roasted plum parfait or raspberry syllabub.

Honey Pistachio Shortbread

Although diminutive in size, these honey pistachio shortbread biscuits (cookies) are relatively thick. This means that just one or two are really quite satisfying. Well, okay, maybe three.

If you have a good quality honey, you don’t need much for the flavour to come through and enrich these shortbread biscuits. I’ve only used a tablespoon but it sings out loud. The pistachios provide a more subtle note, but give a lovely chewy texture.

I’ve made this honey pistachio shortbread with plain four rather than wholemeal. Plain flour produces a paler and more attractive appearance than wholemeal and the dough is also easier to work. However, as a nod to my healthy whole food credentials, I’ve added some brown rice flour.

If you prefer the idea of crispy biscuits, rather than melt-in-the-mouth ones, just roll the dough thinner and bake for a few minutes longer.

Ingredients And Substitutions

Although you only need three ingredients to make traditional shortbread, you’ll find a few more in this recipe. The clue is in the name.

Butter

Butter is a key ingredient in shortbread. It’s where the melt-in-the-mouth quality comes from. But it also provides flavour. So if you can use a good quality butter, so much the better. I don’t have much choice as I use organic butter.

Unsalted butter is the one to go for, it generally has a higher fat content than salted butter. I add a pinch of salt to the mix to make up for this.

Flour

In an unusual departure from my favoured wholemeal spelt flour, I’ve gone for plain white flour here. Shortbread looks good when it’s pale and interesting, rather than beige. Annoyingly, I slightly over-baked the ones you can see in the images here, so they’re a bit darker than they should be.

However, I have added some healthy brown rice flour. Ground rice is often substituted for some of the flour in shortbread. This is because it’s a much needed starch, but as it lacks gluten, it makes for a more tender biscuit.

It’s the gluten in wheat flour that can turn cookies and pastry tough, if you don’t handle the dough correctly. Rice flour also gives a slightly dry and sandy texture, which is very much what you want from good shortbread.

Brown rice flour is surprisingly light in colour, so the shortbread remains relatively pale. If you don’t have any to hand though, you can use semolina or even cornflour instead.

Honey

Honey is the dominant flavour in this shortbread, but that’s just as it should be. Use a good quality honey if you can. Lighter honeys with floral notes work best, but really any type of honey is fine.

Pistachio Nuts

Pistachios give colour and textural interest to the shortbread. Although the flavour is subtle, it’s definitely there.

You need unsalted shelled pistachios for this recipe.

Sugar

Caster sugar is best for shortbread. I use the unrefined version, but this does give a yellower hue to the final biscuit. I leave this one entirely to you.

How To Make Honey Pistachio Shortbread

Like most shortbread, these honey pistachio biscuits are really quite easy to make. The only real difference is that you need to chop a few pistachio nuts in addition to the usual method.

Please refer to the recipe card at the bottom of this post for full instructions, timings and quantities of ingredients used.

You will need a baking sheet, rolling pin and small biscuit cutter, of whatever shape you like, to make these shortbread biscuits. I used a heart.

Step 1. Chop Pistachios

Chop the pistachios with a sharp knife. Try to get a good mix of crumbs, small pieces and larger ones. Instead of a knife, I bash them using a pestle and mortar.

Step 2. Prepare Dough

In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar, honey and salt together until the mix is light in colour and fluffy in texture. I do this by hand with a wooden spoon, but you can use electric beaters if you prefer.

Work in the flours and chopped pistachios with your spoon or beaters until the mix clumps together and starts to form a dough.

Gather the clumps together with your hands and form them into a ball. The secret to good shortbread is not to overwork the dough. So don’t knead it. Just pat it into a thick disc shape, then place it back in the bowl.

Cover the bowl with a tea towel or plastic bag and leave in a cool place to rest. This step isn’t essential if you’re in a hurry, but it will make it easier to roll out the dough and the biscuits will hold their shape better.

Step 3. Roll And Stamp Dough

Line a large baking sheet or two smaller ones with a baking mat or baking paper.

Lightly flour your work top and rolling pin, then roll out the disc of dough to an even thickness.

Stamp out cookies with a small cutter and place onto your lined baking sheet. Gather up the offcuts, form into another ball and roll out again. Repeat the process until you’ve used up all of the dough.

Sprinkle the shortbread shapes lightly with caster sugar. This step isn’t crucial, but it gives the finished bakes an attractive finish.

Top Tip

Depending on the size of your cutters, the quantity in the recipe below makes eighteen small biscuits (cookies) or ten larger ones.

Step 5. Bake Shortbread

Place the baking tray on the middle shelf of your preheated oven. Bake just until the shortbread starts to turn golden. Unlike some of the ones you can see in my images, they shouldn’t be brown.

Using a fish spatula, transfer the shortbread biscuits onto a wire rack to cool.

Top Tips

For crispier biscuits, roll the dough a little thinner and bake until golden.

The shortbread will keep in an airtight container for a week. But I strongly suspect it won’t last anything like that long.

Other Shortbread Recipes You Might Like

• Almond rye shortbread with whisky raspberry cream
• Chocolate & cardamom shortbread biscuits
• Crystallised ginger shortbread biscuits
• Flower cookies: lemon shortbread
• Hazelnut shortbread
• Matcha shortbread with cacao nibs

Keep in Touch

Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these honey pistachio shortbread biscuits, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or advice for making shortbread?

Please rate the recipe. If you post pictures of your creations on social media, tag me @choclette8 so I can see them.

For more delicious and nutritious recipes follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard or Pinterest. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my weekly newsletter. Or why not join the conversation in our Healthy Vegetarian Whole Food Recipes Facebook Group?

If you’d like more pistachio recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.

Choclette x

Honey Pistachio Shortbread. PIN IT.

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5 from 4 votes

Honey Pistachio Shortbread

Shortbread is a beloved staple of British afternoon tea and a festive favourite at Christmas time. Flecked with green, these honey pistachio shortbread biscuits have the classic crumbly and melt-in-the mouth texture you'd expect from a traditional shortbread recipe. However, the addition of pistachios provides a delightful and welcome chewiness. They're just what you need to accompany a bowl of ice cream or fruity summer dessert.

Cook ModeToggle to keep screen awake

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Cook Time10 minutes mins

Resting Time20 minutes mins

Course: Afternoon Tea, Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: British

Keyword: biscuits, honey, pistachios, shortbread

Servings: 18 pieces

Calories: 100kcal

Author: Choclette @ Tin and Thyme

Ingredients

• 110 g unsalted butter softened
• 40 g golden caster sugar
• 1 tbsp honey use one with plenty of flavour
• 1 pinch fine sea salt
• 125 g unbleached plain flour
• 50 g brown rice flour can use semolina instead
• 25 g pistachios plain and unsalted – roughly chopped
• 1 tsp caster sugar for sprinkling

Metric – US Customary

Instructions

• In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar, honey and salt together until the mix is light in colour and fluffy in texture.
  110 g unsalted butter, 40 g golden caster sugar, 1 tbsp honey, 1 pinch fine sea salt
• Chop the pistachios so that you get a good mix of crumbs, small pieces and larger ones. I bash them using a pestle and mortar.
  25 g pistachios
• Work in the flours and chopped pistachios until the mix clumps together and starts to form a dough.
  125 g unbleached plain flour, 50 g brown rice flour
• Gather everything together with your hands and form a ball. Place the ball back in the bowl, cover it and leave in a cool place to rest for 20 minutes. This step isn’t essential if you’re in a hurry, but it will make it easier to roll the dough out and the biscuits will better hold their shape.
• Set your oven to 170℃ (150℃ fan, 338℉, Gas 3).
• Line a large baking sheet or two smaller ones with a baking mat or paper.
• Lightly flour your work top and rolling pin, then roll the dough out to 6mm (¼ inch) in thickness.
• Stamp out cookies with a cutter measuring roughly 5 cm (2 inch) in diameter. Gather up the offcuts, form into another ball and roll out again. Repeat the process until you've used up all of the dough.
• Place the stamped out dough onto your lined baking sheet. Sprinkle lightly with the sugar and place on the middle shelf of your heated oven.
  1 tsp caster sugar
• Bake for ten minutes or until the shortbread is just starting to turn slightly golden. Unlike some of the ones you can see in my images, they shouldn’t be brown.
• Using a fish spatula, transfer the shortbread onto a wire rack to cool.

Notes

For crispier biscuits, roll the dough to around 4mm and bake for 2-3 minutes more – until golden.

Once cool, the shortbread will keep in an airtight container for a week.

Delicious on its own as a snack, for afternoon tea or to accompany summer desserts such as ice cream and eton mess.

You’ll find additional tips and info about this recipe in the main body of the post.

Please note: calories and other nutritional information are per serving. They’re approximate and will depend on serving size and exact ingredients used. Please refer to my nutrition disclaimer for further information.

Nutrition Estimate

Calories: 100kcal | Carbohydrates: 11g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 13mg | Sodium: 3mg | Potassium: 32mg | Fiber: 0.5g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 158IU | Vitamin C: 0.1mg | Calcium: 4mg | Iron: 0.4mg

Tried this recipe?Leave a comment below letting us know how you got on and do share a photo on Instagram. Tag @choclette8 or use hashtag #tinandthyme.

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