Forget the diet! Delicious three-ingredient shortbread you must try

If you’ve been sticking to a strict diet in self-isolation to try and avoid gaining some extra kilos, now’s the time to break it, with this delicious three-ingredient shortbread sure to please even the pickiest of eaters.

Home cook Rebecca O’Brien has become everyone’s baking inspiration in the coronavirus lockdown after sharing her super-easy and tasty recipe for shortbread. It contains just three ingredients – all of which are probably already in your kitchen cupboard – and better yet, can be left to bake in the slow cooker without any worry of it burning.

Rebecca posted the recipe to the Facebook group Crockpot/Slow Cooker Recipes & Tips recently and it well and truly sent the Internet into a spin. The main ingredients are flour, caster sugar and butter, but you can add in extra ingredients for some added flavour, such as chocolate chips or cranberries if you like.

First sieve the flour into a mixing bowl, mix in the sugar and then rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Next, you can add in any extras you like, but if not, place the mixture into a greased cake tin and press down firmly with your fingers or the back of a spoon.

Put the tin straight into a hot slow cooker, with a tea towel under the lid to stop any condensation, and cook on high for two and a half hours or until light brown in colour. Once cooked remove the tin, sprinkle with caster sugar and leave until it has cooled slightly before removing and placing on a wire tray. It’s as easy as that!

Fellow home cooks have thanked Rebecca for sharing the simple recipe, with many claiming they’ll be trying the shortbread out immediately.

“Mine is in right now, the mixture alone smells amazing!” Laura Hay wrote on the post. While Bernadette Mullins said: “That looks so good, love shortbread!” And Emma Smithson added: “Looks lovely, definitely trying this. Thank you for sharing.”

But, if shortbread isn’t your thing, there’s plenty of other delicious and easy recipes to try. Earlier this year a creative cook sent tastebuds into a spin with her ingenious recipe for a three-ingredient Nutella cake.

While the inclusion of the delicious hazelnut spread in desserts is not unusual, this recipe in particular has really got people talking due to the way its cooked. Instead of baking the delicious treat in the oven, the trusty slow cooker is used.

The recipe was share on social media this week on the Slow Cooker Recipe & Tips Facebook page, and it has since received a huge reaction from fellow cooks who are eager to give it a try themselves. Better yet, the cake requires just three ingredients; 1 cup of Nutella, 1 cup of self-raising flour and three eggs.

All you have to do is place the ingredients in the slow cooker and mix together. Then cover and set the timer for one hour on a high temperature. The cook also suggests placing a tea towel under the lid to stop condensation. If you haven’t wiped the jar clean, then you can also ice the cake with Nutella once it has cooked and cooled.