These are like magic. With only three ingredients (flour, butter, sugar), these are more than the sum of their parts. Delicately sweet and simply buttery and delicious! If you like super easy baking recipes, this one is for you. All you need is those three ingredients, your hands, a pan, something to cut and poke the dough with, and a bowl to mix in. Really. I can't recommend these enough.
The original recipe is from Christina's Cucina: https://www.christinascucina.com/how-to-make-shortbread/
Note: I learned that Scottish shortbread is meant to be pretty pale, and I may have gotten mine a little too golden on the sides and bottom, but honestly, the outside golden pieces were my favorite pieces, so do what you want!
Ingredients:
340 g (~2 ¼ cup) all-purpose flour
113 g (1/2 cup + 1 Tbsp.) extra fine (small granule) white sugar, plus extra (optional)
227 g (1 cup) high quality salted butter, at room temperature
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 300°F. Grease a 8x8” pan with butter, or line with parchment paper. Another option is to roll it out to 3/4” on a baking tray, or shape into a 9” round pan.
By hands (traditional method), or with a mixer, combine the flour and sugar.
Add the butter and mix until it is smooth and no dry flour remains, but don’t overmix. It may not get super smooth if you mix it by hand, but as long as you can squish it into a ball (even if it crumbles a bit), it is okay.
Gently press into a 8x8” pan to 9” round pan (or about ¾ inch thick) or roll to ¾ inch thick on a baking tray.
Cut into desired shapes with a knife or bench scraper (whether rectangles, squares, or pizza slices) and use a fork or toothpick to dot holes all around, or in a pattern.
Bake 40-60 minutes, or until just the outer edges are golden. Apparently Scottish shortbread should be quite pale, but bake it to the color you like!
Remove and dust with a little more sugar (optional). Re-cut the lines you cut before baking, if needed.
Let cool in the pan.
Remove and separate the pieces. Serve, or store leftovers covered in a sealed container or tin for up to 2 weeks at room temperature.
Makes about 8-20 shortbread, depending on how you cut them.
The ingredients I used. Foothills creamery butter worked well! Berry sugar is just super fine granulated sugar. It makes a less gritty shortbread.
Prepare your pan with butter or parchment. You can also bake it on a sheet or in a circular pan.
Add the flour and sugar to a mixing bowl.
And combine.
Then add the butter.
And combine. This takes a little work, but try to get it homogeneous without overworking it. Mine was still a bit crumbly.
Press into the prepared pan. Don't press too hard.
Then cut into your desired shapes and poke little holes in the top to help it vent steam while baking.
After baking, you lose some of the cut marks.
But all you need to do is re-cut the marks and dust it with sugar. Let it cool in the pan.
Once cooled completely, separate them and enjoy! They're simple, but oh so perfect in their simplicity!
Temptation to Jenga stack them was too strong.
The bottom of a middle piece is slightly golden. I preferred the outside pieces which were more golden, but they were all delicious!