Butter is the star of these biscuits
Dense, rich and buttery, shortbread had me fooled for years.
Classic recipes call for just three ingredients: unsalted butter, sugar and flour. But how could something so decadent possibly be so simple to prepare? So, in my younger days – without doing much investigating and never being able to eat just one – I relied on Walkers and the Girl Scouts.
Now, I prefer DIY.
The basic dough isn’t difficult to master: one part sugar, two parts butter and three parts flour, by weight. These are the basic instructions: cream the butter and sugar, slowly sift in the flour, refrigerate the dough, then bake without browning for about 20 minutes.
Flour might outweigh the other two main ingredients, but there’s no mistaking it: butter is the star.
We call them cookies on this side of the pond. But shortbread originated in Scotland, where it remains a traditional holiday treat. Its buttery, almost nutty, not-too-sweet flavor combined with a crumbly, crunchy, dry texture makes shortbread scrumptious and – at least to me – highly addictive.
The cookies are usually shaped into rounds, rectangles or “petticoat tails,” in which a large circle of dough is divided like slices of pie. These are particularly pretty when done in special shortbread baking dishes which leave imprints on the dough in intricate patterns reminiscent of snowflakes. Add your own patterns with fork tines. Or, use cookie cutters to form the stiff dough into stars or hearts.
Corn starch or corn or rice flours are often used in place of – or alongside – white wheat flour. Some bakers prefer castor, or superfine, sugar in their shortbread. Many recipes also call for a small amount of salt.
The first time I made shortbread myself, I used an easy-to-follow recipe from Ina Garten, aka the Barefoot Contessa. It included a little salt as well as vanilla and a chocolate drizzle.
Then I graduated to an almond-flour, whole-wheat version – milling my own wheat berries, making my own almond flour and using half the sugar. These didn’t have the light, sometimes slightly golden color of the white-flour kind. But they were crispy and buttery – and good – just the same.
Truth be told, I prefer the classic butter-sugar-white flour recipe. But I do like to enhance it, adding spices and herbs such as a white pepper and cardamom or nutmeg, caraway seeds, orange or lemon zest, lavender, rosemary or thyme. Sometimes, just a sprinkling of turbinado or demerara sugar will do.
Shortbread Cookies
From Ina Garten via www.foodnetwork.com
If you’ve never made shortbread before, this is a good first recipe. The chocolate drizzle is optional.
3/4 pound unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 to 7 ounces very good semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the butter and 1 cup of sugar until they are just combined. Add the vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and salt, then add them to the butter-sugar mixture. Mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together. Dump onto a surface dusted with flour and shape into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.
Roll the dough 1/2-inch thick and cut with a 3-by-1-inch finger-shaped cutter. Place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Allow to cool to room temperature.
When the cookies are cool, place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Put 3 ounces of the chocolate in a glass bowl and microwave on high power for 30 seconds. Stir with a wooden spoon. Continue to heat and stir in 30-second increments until the chocolate is just melted. Add the remaining chocolate and allow it to sit at room temperature, stirring often, until it’s completely smooth. Stir vigorously until the chocolate is smooth and slightly cooled; stirring makes it glossier.
Drizzle 1/2 of each cookie with just enough chocolate to coat it.
Yield: 20 cookies
Almond Shortbread Cookies
1 cup almond flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
3/4 cup melted butter
12 to 15 sliced almonds
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper and spray with nonstick spray.
In a large bowl, mix flours, salt and sugar. Add almond extract and melted butter. Mix until just combined. The dough will be quite crumbly, but it will come together when you form the cookies, using the heat of your hands.
Form into balls and place on prepared cookie sheets. Flatten slightly with the palm of your hand. Press sliced almonds into the center of each cookie. Bake for 20 minutes. Leave to cool on the sheet trays for 10 minutes before removing.
Yield: 15 cookies
Note: When I made this recipe, I used 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (soft-white wheat from Joseph’s Grainery in Colfax) that I milled myself and homemade almond flour. You don’t have to grind your own; the grainery will mill it for you. On the Web: www.josephsgrainery.com.
Lavender Shortbread Cookies
From www.joythebaker.com
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon dried lavender blossoms
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon raw turbinado sugar (you can also use granulated sugar)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)
Extra sugar for sprinkling on top
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and salt. Set aside.
In a small spice grinder (I use my cleaned out coffee grinder) to grind up 1 tablespoon lavender and 1 tablespoon sugar. Grind it up! You could also use a mortar and pestle to grind the sugar and lavender together.
In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, add butter, lavender mixture, and remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Cream on medium speed until slightly more pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. There will still be raw sugar bits floating around. That’s fine. Stop the mixer, add the flour. Mix on low speed until dough comes together. The dough will be crumbly, then begin to form when it continues to mix. Dump dough mixture out onto a clean surface and form into a ball with your hands. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
Divide refrigerated dough into quarters. On a lightly floured work surface, roll dough out to a 1/4-inch thickness. Use a 1 1/2-inch round cookie cutter to cut cookies, or use a pizza cutter to slice cookies into squares. Use a fork to prick cookies. Brush very lightly with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Refrigerate cookies while oven preheats.
Place racks in the center and upper third of the oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. When oven is preheated, bake cookies for 8 to 11 minutes, until just browned around the edges. Remove from oven. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Cookies last, in an airtight container at room temperature, for up to 4 days.
Yield: about 50 cookies
Rosemary Lemon Shortbread Cookies
From www.mybaking addiction.com
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced
3/4 teaspoon salt
Sanding sugar for rolling, optional
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add lemon zest, vanilla and egg and beat until incorporated.
In a medium bowl, whisk together both kinds of flour, salt and rosemary.
With the mixer on low, gently add dry ingredients into butter mixture. Mix until ingredients are well combined and a stiff dough is formed.
Cut two 12-by-16-inch pieces of plastic wrap. Divide dough in half, placing one half of the dough on each piece of plastic wrap. Use your hands to form two 1 ½ inch diameter logs. Open the plastic wrap and sprinkle logs with sanding sugar (if using) and roll a bit more to coat the logs well in the sugar. Wrap logs tightly in the plastic wrap, place on baking sheet and freeze logs for 1 hour or until firm.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Remove dough logs from the freezer and remove the plastic wrap. Slice dough into ¼ inch thick slices and place on prepared baking sheets 1 inch apart.
Bake until cookies are just golden at the edges, about 16 to 18 minutes. Allow cookies to cool on wire racks. Store cookies in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
Yield: about 3 dozen cookies