Why does my shortbread always spread out

[notasausage]

I have tried various recipes but they always spread so the shapes end up fat and flat! Today's recipe was 250g butter, 300g flour, 140g sugar, 2tsp vanilla essence. Bake at 180. I tried to make stain glass window biscuits at Christmas - same problem, different recipe! Help!

Are you using baking parchment, or just greasing the trays?

I always bake mine in a high sided pan as one piece so it can't spread. It pretty much has the texture of breadcrumbs, very dry before I bake it, though on pressing down it sticks together.

Do you chill them before you put them in the oven? If the biscuits are warm they will melt and spread in the oven, but if they're chilled then the outside of the biscuit will cook hard before the rest of the biscuit melts, and keep the shape.

A good non spreading biscuit is 1oz sugar creamed with 2oz butter, and then mix in 3oz of plain flour. Not the most delicious biscuit in the world, but stable.

I always put some rice flour in my shortbread, and typically would put 250g butter, 1/3 cup of sugar, 1 1/2 cup plain flour, 1 cup of rice flour. I'd say this spreads slightly - wouldn't work for stained glass biscuits, but OK for holding most other basic shapes. I thinks thats probably more flour, and less sugar. For really sharp shortbread fingers, press into a tin of the right size, cut to shape, and then cook. Cut again while warm.

They are cooked on a Lakeland nonstick sheet - no grease. The dough wasn't chilled after cutting - impatient 3yr old involved! I did some of my own that were more chilled but not straight out the fridge. I'll give that a try.

I'd say that there's not enough flour, as the classic shortbread recipe is in the ratio of 1:2:3 sugar:butter:flour. So, it's quite possible that it's 'melting' before it's cooked.

If you want it to be crunchy, you can substitute a little of the flour for ground rice

ie
250g flour
50g ground rice
200g butter
100g castor sugar

The ratio I use is 4:2. 4oz butter, 2oz sugar, 4oz flour and 2oz corn flour. It's hard work making the dough but doesn't spread at all (I tend to make a sausage shape and cut off discs).