I couldn't find a recipe that fit my needs, so I went with the making it up as I went method. I started with a traditional shortbread recipe, which only has 3 ingredients, Flour, Butter, and sugar, and I replaced some of the sugar with Molasses.
The Molasses flavor was strong in the dough, but not quite as strong in the finished product, still detectable though, yet the cookies are still obviously shortbread. I was pleased with the balance in the finished product. Keep in mind that if you use a lighter, less flavorful treacle vs darker treacle or Blackstrap Molasses, you will end up with less treacle flavor in the finished product.
If you want a stronger Treacle flavor and want to add more treacle, reduce the sugar equally. I will likely try 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup treacle next time. I have a suspicion though, given the slight texture change from normal shortbread this time, that this will cause a need to increase the flour somewhat. I will play around with this recipe more in the future and post results. :)
Molasses/Treacle Shortbread
4 Cups Unbleached Flour
1 1/2 Cup (3 Sticks) Butter (softened)
1/2 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup Blackstrap Molasses (or any other kind of treacle you want to try)
Prep:
* Preheat your oven to 350 degree's F
- Mix all ingredients into a large bowl.
- Knead dough with your hands, it will seem too dry and like isn't going to come together, but it will, I promise. Keep kneading, the warmth of your hands will further melt the butter and it will form a nice, firm ball that feels a lot like play-dough. Good shortbread is often kneaded for a good 10 minutes.
- Press into shortbread pan, use your cookie stamp, or roll out onto a well-floured surface and cut with cookie cutters.
- Bake on parchment-paper lined, or lightly oiled cookie sheets, for 20 mins.
- Cool on wire rack.
Tips:
2. If your dough is still crumbly, keep kneading. If after 10 minutes it's still crumbly, you may need more moisture, certain flours, like bleached flour, will soak up extra moisture, add a little butter, or a little more treacle and keep kneading until you get the dough to stay together, it should be similar to the texture of play-dough.
3. If, somehow, your dough is too wet, just add more flour, a little at a time.
4. Don't be afraid to use lots of flour on everything that will come into contact with the dough, (a wood surface works best), flour your cookie cutters, your hands, your rolling-pin. Flour the hell out of it all or the dough will stick, but keep in mind you're adding flour to your dough, which will make it crumblier, so roll it out and work with it as little as possible by getting as many cookies out of each rolling as you can. As you work the dough it'll become less sticky and you'll need to add less flour each time.