I first started to look into small batch baking a few years ago, when baking was my new favourite hobby. I love to be creative with baked goods, but when I was home on the weekend I might make up to three new bakes, and at full size they were going stale before they were finished. We didn’t really have the freezer space to accommodate all the cakes, muffins and cookies I wanted to have a go at.

What is small batch baking?

Small batch baking is simply a way to make all the things you want to make, but at a reduced volume. So instead of turning out 18-24 cookies, you might get six. There’s lots of reasons you might want to limit your batch size when it comes to all those yummy baking delights. Whether you are watching your treat or snack sizes, or your household is smaller, or no one in the house likes shortbread but yourself; these are all good reasons to give small batch a go.

Small batch shortbreak flowers

These shortbread biscuits are a simple recipe. Not only do you not need many ingredients, but you need less of each since you are only making a small number of the biscuits. For these shortbread flowers you will need;

• 50 grams of butter
• 1/4 cup of powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup of flour
• A pinch of salt

Melt your butter slightly for 30 seconds in the microwave. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix to combine. Knead the mixture until it forms a round dough and then wrap in plastic wrap for the fridge. Leave it to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Roll your dough out on a floured surface, and then cut your flowers out. If you find the mixture is crumbly, work the dough a bit longer to combine it again. I used a flower cookie cutter, but you can make any shape you have a cutter for.

Bake the biscuits at 180 degrees C for approximately 10-12 minutes. When they are brown at the edge of each cookie, they are done.

Cool them on a wire cake rack. Once they are cold, you can decorate them as you like. Decorating them can be great fun for the kids and there aren’t so many cookies that they’ll get bored of the activity either. This recipe yielded me seven shortbread biscuits, though if I had a smaller cutter or made slightly thinner biscuits I may have had more in the batch.

This article was written by Kym Moore. Kym is a working mum of two, and occasional blogger. Fancies herself a writer, when she isn’t editing her kids’ vlogs or running their social media at Baby Likes Cake. Follow them on Facebook and YouTube.

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