Today's shortbread cookie recipe is very simple. It only calls for five
ingredients, that you probably already have on hand. I think you're going to
love it, so let's begin. This shortbread cookie recipe is one of my favorites.
It's very simple to make. You only need five ingredients that you probably
already have in your pantry, and it yields a super buttery, delicious,
classic shortbread cookies. Now to get started, you're going to want to pre-heat
your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Next you will need a large bowl, and to that
bowl we are going to add one cup, or two sticks, of salted, I'm sorry unsalted
softened butter. Now if you don't use cup measurements, if you prefer to bake using
weights, that's fine, that's actually my preference, I recommend everybody bake
with weights, but I do have all of the weight measurements for each ingredient
listed in the description below. So you can grab those measurements there. Now we
are going to need an electric mixer. You can use a hand mixer, or a stand mixer,
and we're going to cream our butter until it is smooth and creamy.
This should only take a second because your butter should already be softened. So
once it's nice and creamy, we are going to add 3/4 cup of granulated sugar.
We're also going to add 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and now if you only have salted butter
on hand, remember we used unsalted butter, you can actually use salted butter, and skip the salt in this recipe.
I'm also going to add one teaspoon of pure
vanilla extract to my shortbread. Now this isn't necessarily a traditional
shortbread ingredient. A lot of recipes don't use any additional flavoring I
just really like the flavor and so I always add it to my shortbread. You can
make your own decision if you like to have that vanilla flavor or not.
And now we'll just cream all of these ingredients together until they're completely combined.
The final ingredient you are going to need now is 2 and 1/4
cups of all-purpose flour. Now flour is very easy to under measure,
or over measure, so this is another reason I really recommend baking with
weights whenever you get the chance. The best way to measure your flour, if you
are not weighing it, is to just stir the flour that you are measuring from. Spoon
that into a measuring cup, and then level it off. You don't want to scoop the flour
directly. You don't want end up with too much flour or your cookies will be too
dry and crumbly. You don't want to use not
enough. They're going to spread too much in the oven. So weighing this is really the way to go if you can
So I am just going to add the flour graually in about three or four parts, and stir well in between each addition.
So once your dough is starting to cling together, and all the flour has been absorbed. What
we're going to do, is we're going to turn this dough out onto a piece of cling wrap.
I'm just gonna use my hands to kind of work it together.
I'm also going to use the cling wrap to facilitate this, because what we want is we just want to
form this into a disc, and then we're going to chill in our fridge in just a second.
So once your dough is a smooth, flat, disc, now, we're going to take this
to our fridge where we will chill it for 15 minutes. Now the dough can chill for
longer than 15 minutes. You can chill it for overnight or even for several days,
but keep in mind that if you chill it longer, it's going to be really firm and
it might crack a little bit when you try to roll it out. So I recommend letting it
sit at room temperature for a couple minutes if you chill it for longer than an hour or so.
Once your dough has chilled for 15 minutes, now what we're
going to do is, we're gonna turn this out onto a lightly floured surface.
You'll want to dust the top of the dough with a little bit more flour, and now you'll
need a rolling pin to roll this dough out until it's about a quarter-inch
thick. We're gonna cut our cookie dough into shapes now. I'm going to be using a
round cookie cutter. This is about two and a quarter inch in diameter. I'm just
going to cut out as many circles as they can from the dough.
You'll want to use a spatula with a thin edge to scrape up each cookie, and
transfer it to a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
Now because these cookies really aren't going to spread much, they really shouldn't spread much at all.
You can place them pretty close together, but I still recommend giving them about
an inch of space between each cookie. Of course once you've cut out as many
shortbread cookies as you can, you're going to want to gather up all the
scraps, and the remaining pieces of dough, and then roll that out again to a
quarter inch once again, and just repeat the process so you can get as many shortbread cookies as possible out of this dough.
So once you have filled up a baking sheet these cookies are ready to go in the oven, but there is one other
step I like to do. Now ,traditionally, shortbread cookies are often pricked
with a fork. It often has to do with the way that they're baked. It is not
required for this recipe, but it does kind of give them that traditional look.
so I'm gonna go over each cookie and just lightly pierce it with the tines of
a fork. Again this is just for aesthetics, you don't have to do it, but if you're
looking for that traditional short appearance, it does help with that.
Once we filled up our cookie sheet we will transfer this to our 350 degree
fahrenheit oven, where the cookies will need to bake for about 13 to 15 minutes
or until the edges are just beginning to turn a light golden brown.
Once your shortbread cookies have finished baking, you'll want to let them
cool completely on the baking sheet. They'll still be a little bit fragile
while they're warm. Now, if you'd like, once they've cooled completely, you can
definitely drizzle them with a little bit of melted chocolate. That's one of my
favorite things to do, to just drizzle or dip them with a little bit of chocolate,
but that's not necessary these taste good as standalone shortbread cookies. -
And that is all there is to making classic easy homemade shortbread cookies.
I really hope you guys enjoy today's recipe. If you try it out, please leave me
a comment and let me know what you think. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time.
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