I made this recipe last week to take to a party, my thought was to make fig rolls using the preserve in the previous post sandwiched between cardamom flavoured shortbread. Good plan.
I have successfully made shortbread countless times, but always using plain white flour with the semolina, this time I decided to use wholemeal spelt flour. The flavour was excellent, so much so that my friends have asked for the recipe, but the texture was quite different to usual. The wholemeal flour doesn’t absorb the butter quite the same as white flour, so the shortbread was more crumbly and brittle than I would have liked, and some of the shortbread melted away from the cute little rounds that I had cut out.
So making the rolls again, I cooked them in one piece in a tray and then cut them up once they were out of the oven but still quite hot, and this worked well.

1 jar caramelised fig preserve

For the shortbread –

225 grams wholemeal spelt flour

100 grams fine semolina

225 grams unsalted butter at room temperature

100 grams castor sugar

the seeds from 15 green cardamoms

Cut the butter up into a bowl and add the sugar, cream together until smooth.

In another bowl mix the flour, semolina and cardamom

Add about a third of the flour mix into the butter and mix well to blend.

Add another third of the flour mix and blend this in, then the last third.

As you are getting to the last if the flour you will have to knead it into the dough.

Work the dough into a round ball, flatten a bit and cut it into two equal parts.

Line a 17 cm x 27 cm baking tray with baking parchment.

Roll out one of your pieces of dough to fit the tray. This is easiest between two sheets of cling film. You may have to do some trimming and patching to get a perfect oblong, the dough will stick back together in the baking.

Spread over this an even layer if the preserved figs.

Rollout the other half of the shortbread and lay over the figs. Prick all over with a fork.

Bake at 125C fan oven, 150C electric or gas mark 3 for 40 minutes.

Cut the rolls into the sizes that you like while the rolls are still warm and soft and the leave to go cold completely before removing from the tray.