Shortbread Cookies
Three ingredients, deeply buttery, with a sandy melting crumb.
Makes 24 cookies · Prep 15 min · Rise 45 min · Bake 20 min
Ingredients
Dough
- 1 cup Butter, softened
- 1/2 cup Granulated sugar
- 2 cups All-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
Instructions
Dough
- Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth and creamy but not aerated, about 2 minutes.
- Add the flour and salt (and vanilla, if using) and mix on low just until the dough clumps together. (Tip: It will look crumbly before it comes together. Press a handful — if it holds, it's ready. Overmixing past this point starts building the gluten you're trying to avoid.)
Shape
- Press the dough evenly into an 8-inch square pan lined with parchment, or roll to 1/2 inch and cut into fingers.
Chill
- Chill until firm.
Bake
- Prick all over with a fork, then bake at 160°C (325°F) until pale gold and dry all the way through. (Tip: Low and slow. You are drying the shortbread out as much as baking it — rushing at a higher temperature browns the edges while the middle stays damp.)
- Cut into fingers while still warm and in the pan, then leave to cool completely before lifting out. (Tip: Cutting cold shortbread shatters it; cutting warm and cooling in place gives clean edges.)
Tips
- Rice flour for extra sand: Replacing 2 tbsp of the flour with rice flour gives the characteristically sandy, crumbly Scottish texture, because rice flour brings no gluten at all.
- Shortbread came out tough: Overmixed after the flour went in. Once the flour is wet, every extra turn of the mixer builds gluten — and gluten is the one thing shortbread cannot have.