After a couple of weeks of more involved cookies, we get back to the basics with this shortbread recipe. Just five pantry staples: butter, sugar, flour, vanilla and salt. At first I was underwhelmed with the idea of doing this recipe. It didn’t seem that interesting but after consuming more than my fair share of cookies, this recipe now sits very high up on my go-to list.
The dough does get very hard after chilling so a bit of pressure will need to be applied to get it into the 9″ square. The width of the dough will be 1/4″. It is also a bit dry, so add just enough bench flour to keep the dough from sticking. I was able to roll it out relatively easily and pressed together any cracks that appeared. The edges remained a little crumbly.
The suggested method for cutting into rectangle portions is by scoring the dough with a knife, letting it chill again if needed and then cutting all the way through. My dough was still cold so I simply marked at the appropriate lengths and then cut with the straight edge of a pie wheel. Any crumbs on the edges were pressed into the sides of the pieces. I figured there is enough butter that it would meld together in the oven. Then I lifted them onto my parchment-lined baking sheet.
Before baking, granulated sugar is sprinkled on top of the cookies.
After 16 minutes, the cookies had golden brown edges. I was happy with how the rectangle shapes looked but to get really precise, before cutting the pieces you can use a bench scraper to get the sides really straight.
The granulated sugar did stick but to get an even nicer texture I’d use coarse sugar next time. I also thought about dipping the edges in dark chocolate and sprinkling with sea salt, something Ina Garten did in her recipe but after I tasted the cookies, the flavor simply from the butter and sugar was so good, they don’t need any embellishment. I do recommend using the best quality butter to get the maximum flavor. I also really liked the thickness of these cookies. Nice and hefty and satisfying when biting into them.
Week 6 of the Bouchon Bakery Book Project
Read the Project recap on the Shortbread
Bake with us!