My Favorite Scottish Shortbread
I love baking cookies. Every Christmas I bake an assortment of cookies for family and friends, a tradition I started years ago. Last year I made bags of granola instead and realized just how much less stress I had by not baking 10 different kinds of cookies! But (sigh), I’ll go back to baking cookies, its a labor of love and I am a glutton for punishment. There are the tried and true cookies I bake year after year; the few that show up from time to time and then, one or two new cookies each holiday season.
The Perfect Cookie
The cornerstone of my Holiday box of cookies is the traditional Scottish Shortbread. The recipe, from the long-defunct Cuisine magazine, was the bonus to the story, My Father’s Shortbread. The author recounts watching his father making shortbread every Christmas. His father’s only tools were his hands. I cheat a little and use a mixer to combine the flour into the kneaded butter but everyone should make shortbread completely by hand once.
Shortbread is my absolute favorite cookie. It’s probably because I am a butter FREAK. I love butter. People ask, do you want a little toast with that butter? Shortbread cookies are the closest you will get to just popping a little pat of moo-magic in your mouth.
The dough can be rolled and cut into traditional wedges or works beautifully as cutouts. I have in my collection a couple of embossed rolling pins that can be used with shortbread. Roll the dough to approximately 1/4 inch and then use your embossed pin to create the pattern on the cookie. The dough is easy to work with and very forgiving.
My Father’s Shortbread is my favorite, go-to shortbread cookie, but Bouchon’s Shortbread is a close second!
Adapted from My Father’s Shortbread by Sydney Edelson Cuisine Magazine Dec 1983
Traditional Scottish Shortbread
Ingredients
- 1 pound cold lightly salted butter
- 1 cup superfine sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
Instructions
- Work butter until soft but not melting. Easiest thing to do is pound the butter with a rolling pin Fold butter in half and smoosh it with pin (yes smoosh) until malleable but not warm.
- Place butter in bowl of a stand mixer, add sugar and salt cream until combined, do not beat until fluffy as this will incorporate too much air into butter.
- Add flour to butter mixture and mix on low until particles cling together. Remove from bowl and knead gently until smooth and soft. Pat or roll into a rectangle about 3/8" thick. Mark off pieces 1" x 2-1/2", prick with fork and chill for 1 hour.
- Cut apart and place on cold baking sheet 1/2" apart.
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees, place shortbread in oven and immediately turn temperature down to 275 degrees. Bake for 30 minutes, rotate pan and leave for additional 10-15 minutes.
- Cookies are done when bottoms are golden brown and sand color on top. You can use cookie cutters if you wish. Shortbread retain their shape well.