Scottish shortbread goes a-roving

Lately I've become fascinated by chickpea [besan or gram] flour. It's a South Asian staple and I first tried using it in this recipe for besan laddu, finding it so delicious I started brainstorming what else I could make with it. Here is today's experiment ... Scottish shortbread meets Indian chickpea flour meets Peruvian cacao nibs.

200 g butter
3 heaped tbsp icing sugar
150 g wholemeal flour
100 g besan [chickpea] flour
0.5 cups ground rice or cornflour
cacao nibs (optional)

Cream butter and sugar, add dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Roll into balls and place on baking tray. Bake at 150 degrees C until a delicate brown (about 30 minutes in my ancient oven but your mileage may vary).

Makes about two dozen. Store in an airtight container.

Mmmmm, crunchy

Chickpea flour is gluten free and has a much stickier consistency, when wet, than some other gluten free flours such as rice flour. This could be a handy feature when baking for coeliac friends. More experimentation may be required!