By: Naomi Carissa Intaqta and Rina Maulidyah, Auditors of LPPOM MUI
Shortbread, a world-famous snack from the United Kingdom, is usually served on holidays. This snack is now widely available on the market so that it can be served at family gatherings. It is also easy to make with a light taste. How halal is shortbread?
Cookie lovers must be familiar with shortbread. This typical cookie that is famous in the United Kingdom, especially Scotland, has a distinctive fragrant butter aroma with a very crunchy texture. This cake became increasingly famous in various countries after the Scottish government held a program called Taste of Scotland, an event to promote authentic Scottish cuisine throughout the world.
Shortbread was created in Scotland in the 12th century, this cookie is also called rusk (dry bread) and comes from the remains of bread that is baked in a low-temperature oven. In an attempt to avoid paying taxes on biscuits, manufacturers and the Scottish Master Bakers Association classified shortbread as bread because it had too much butter and sugar to be considered a biscuit, hence the name medieval biscuit bread. The use of butter later became a characteristic of shortbread. It was baked twice in order to increase its shelf life.
The crunchy texture and fragrant buttery aroma attracted Mary, Queen of Scots, in the 16th century. The Queen loved the typical taste of France, the country where she spent most of her childhood. The Queen asked the palace chef to create a version of shortbread called petticoat tails, a cake shaped like a pizza slice filled with caraway seeds for flavour and lots of butter. Shortbread began to be used as a treat for the court and noble family, becoming a symbol of wealth and warmth for the Scottish family.
Both the original and petticoat tails versions of shortbread were served as holiday treats and festive gifts and promoted as authentic Scottish snacks. Then, shortbread is claimed as a traditional souvenir from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, where Scotland is a state, and every January 6th is made as National Shortbread Day.
Raw Materials and Manufacturing Process
A Scottish woman named Mrs. McLintock is credited with writing the first cake recipe to appear in print cookbook media in 1736[2]. The standard shortbread recipe is a mixture of one-part white sugar, two parts butter, and three parts wheat flour.
Over time, many additional ingredients are used, such as cornstarch, rice flour, and nuts, to food flavours and toppings. The shape of the shortbread began to be adjusted to the taste of the maker, such as the shape of a rectangular plate that is cut thinly called fingers. The use of butter is the main key to making shortbread, to get the crumbly texture and distinctive butter aroma of shortbread.
Reporting from the IDN Times news platform for the classic shortbread recipe. First, the oven is heated to a temperature of 190/170o C. Soft butter and caster sugar are put into a bowl while stirring until soft. Flour is added while the dough is stirred so that it blends well. The dough is rolled out to the desired thickness, and the dough is cut according to the desired shape. The shortbread dough is arranged on a baking sheet while baking for 15-20 minutes. Shortbread needs to be cooled before serving.
Halal Aspect
The process of making shortbread is known to be easy, with only three ingredients, namely butter, white sugar, and wheat flour. It is necessary to pay attention to the critical point of the ingredients used. Especially if there are other additional ingredients used to enrich the taste of shortbread. Some raw materials that need to be considered halal include:
1. Wheat flour
Wheat flour uses wheat as the raw material, which is clearly halal. However, in the process of making this flour, fortification is carried out to increase the vitamin and mineral content. Commonly used fortifiers are iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), vitamin B1, vitamin B2, and folic acid. This vitamin fortifier can be produced from the biotransformation process or chemical synthesis, in biotransformation using microorganisms that are multiplied in a growth medium that requires a carbon source and a nitrogen source and then converted into different chemicals.
The growth medium can come from haram animals or halal animals that are not slaughtered according to sharia. Other fortifiers, such as the amino acid L-cysteine, are also commonly used as wheat gluten softeners. L-cysteine can come from human hair extraction, animal fur extraction, and microbial products. L-cysteine from human hair is clearly haram.
Based on MUI Fatwa No. 2 / MUNAS VI / MUI / 2000, the use of body parts is forbidden. L-cysteine from animal fur needs to be investigated. Further, sheep’s wool can be taken while still alive, but poultry will be in pain if its fur is taken, so it must be slaughtered first, this slaughter must be in accordance with Sharia. Meanwhile, if the microbial product requires more complex investigation, including microbial culture, media materials, purification materials, auxiliary materials and other materials.
2. Sugar
There are various types of sugar, such as glucose, fructose, sucrose, and others, which function as sweeteners or preservatives in food products. White sugar from sugar cane sap, which is commonly used to make shortbread, is produced through the process of extraction, purification, evaporation, crystallization, centrifugation, and drying.
Sugar refining is a critical point of halal, activated carbon or ion exchange resin, which is commonly used as a filtration agent and can come from animal derivatives. Activated carbon can come from plants, coal, chemicals, or animal bones. In ion exchange resins, it is necessary to pay attention to whether gelatin is used as a dispersant agent, gelatin can come from animal bones. In addition, if the sugar-making process uses microbial products, it must be ensured that the media used is halal and not contaminated with impurities.
3. Butter
Butter is the main ingredient that gives a distinctive taste, aroma, and texture to shortbread. The better the quality of the butter used, the better the quality of the shortbread produced. The basic ingredient of butter is fresh milk, but nowadays, butter is mostly made from milk cream. Milk cream is obtained from fresh cow’s milk which is separated with a separator so that the milk fat component is obtained. Butter is basically a water-in-oil emulsion product that can be enriched with various additional ingredients such as flavours and dyes.
These flavours and dyes need to be considered whether the flavour has been certified halal and whether the dye comes from vegetable or synthetic chemical materials. In addition, the critical point of butter’s halalness is in the emulsifier, which aims to make the butter mixture, especially water and fat, mix well. Emulsifiers that are often used are mono or diglyceride compounds that are hydrolyzed from fat compounds, which can come from vegetable fats or animal fats.
If it comes from animal fat, then it can come from pork fat or halal animals that are not slaughtered according to sharia. Emulsifiers derived from vegetable fat, during the process of hydrolyzing fat into glyceride compounds, lipase enzymes taken from haram animals can be used, such as porcine pancreatic lipase hydrolyzing produced by the pancreas of pigs.
With the explanation above, Shortbread lovers should buy shortbread that has been certified halal. If you want to make it yourself, make sure the ingredients used are guaranteed halal by looking at the halal label on the packaging of the ingredients. Enjoy trying this British snack (***)
REFERENCES :
[1] Historic UK Ltd. Company Registered in England No. 5621230.
[2] Hyslop, Leah. “Potted histories: shortbread”. The Telegraph. No. 6 October 2013. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
[3] Scottish National Dictionary (1700) Combs. and phr.: (1) shortbread…
[4] IDN Times, news platform.
