If you are looking for a wonderfully crunchy, buttery, easy Scottish Shortbread Cookie recipe you have come to the right place! I would say these taste just like Walkers Shortbread, but they are BETTER.
Shortbread Cookies Recipe
People love a short ingredient list. There are whole cooking shows and blogs dedicated to recipes with less than 5 ingredients. The thing is, less is not always ( or even often ) more when it comes to cooking.
New cooks in particular are enamored with a short ingredient list because they think the recipe is somehow easier because you are throwing fewer things in the bowl or pan. Often the opposite is true: the shorter the list, the more the execution of a recipe must be absolutely spot on.
It's like the old kitchen saying that the mark of an amazing cook is the ability to cook a fried egg perfectly. One ingredient. One! But to make the perfect fried egg, all aspects of the process must be mastered or you end up with a dry, rubbery mess.
For this reason, I avoided shortbread for a very long time. Three ingredients. Just three. Surely I would mess it up. Surely there was some trick that wasn't in the directions of the recipes I found. Surely it wasn't as easy as it looked.
I turned to the comments of roughly 20 recipes on the Internet for shortbread to help. They were filled with horror stories! Accusations of tastelessness, bland hockey pucks, sandy cookie bars, and worse were all over the internet, so I closed my laptop, went to the kitchen, and decided to wing it using
the basic formula for classic Scottish shortbread and the standard mixing practice for cookies:
4 : 2 : 1
Flour : Butter : Sugar
Cream butter and sugar, add dry ingredients and bake.
I figured, worst case scenario, I'd have something workable as a topping for a berry crumble or coffee cake if it all went horribly wrong. At best, I'd have a great starting point for tweaking the recipe.
Guess what, instead I got the BEST Scottish Shortbread Cookies ever!
As it turns out, there's not really anything to it other than that. I don't know what the Internet horror stories were all about, because this shortbread recipe really is as easy as the short ingredient list makes it seem.
Do you have to poke holes in shortbread cookies?
Yes! Poking holes in the cookies helps the moisture escape and the heat distribute evenly throughout the cookie. It is key to getting their perfect dense, crumbly texture.
If you like these shortbread cookies, you might also like:
Classic Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups sifted flour
- 1 cup room temperature salted butter
- ½ cup white sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F.
- In a large bowl, beat 1 cup butter until it begins to turn lighter yellow. Add ½ cup sugar and beat together until well combined.
- Half a cup at a time, add the sifted flour to the creamed butter and sugar.
- After all of the flour is mixed in, the mixture will look like a coarse grain, crumbly sand or breadcrumbs. Do not expect this to form a classic "dough". Put the mixture in an ungreased 8 by 8 pan. ( I used my trusty old square Pyrex dish. )
- Press the mixture down into the pan. I used a large metal spatula place over sections of the pan, and pressed on top of that to make sure I got a more even bar.
- Using a skewer, lightly score (⅛th of an inch deep or so ) the top of the pressed dough to make 16 servings, then poke one row of holes down each scored bar. Make sure you poke straight through the dough and hit the bottom of the pan for each hole.
- Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. The bars will most likely be done around the 30 minute mark, but I saw that mine weren't browning yet by then, so I gave them 5 minutes extra. All of the butter makes these a fairly forgiving cookie, so unlike most cookies, don't be scared that 1 minute or 2 difference will ruin them.
- After baking time is up, remove pan from the oven and let cool for 1 hour.
- Cut each bar from the score marks and serve, wrap, or eat!
Aly says
Try e flour instead of all wheat flour, gives it that added crunch. Also try European (lower moisture) style butter. I like challenge or Kerry gold.
Angela Thomas says
This is super similar to the recipe I use. My recipe came over with my great grandmother. Try creaming the butter and sugar by hand and use sifted powdered sugar (don't let it get melts, though). Add 1/4 cup flour to your amount. Add flour half at a time while working your hand around in a claw shape. Something with your body heat gets the butter and sugar to the perfect consistency. At least, that's what my grandmother always said 🙂 <3
Debbie Horton says
Just made these and sprinkled a bit of green sugar on top for St. Patrick's Day. Delicious! Thank you.
basilandbubbly says
Oh I love that!
Lynda Mistrot says
I want to add Pecans, i am also from the costal South and we put pecans in everything:) Do you think I can add finely chopped pecans without the cookies falling apart when baked?
basilandbubbly says
The shortbread can be a little crumby -- maybe try pressing the pecan pieces into the top before baking?
Lynda Mistrot says
Thanks, I was thinking of using a half on top.
Dawn says
Wondering how important the holes poked prior to baking are? I'd like to try this recipe in a shortbread mold (Nordic Ware pan) and don't want to put holes in it as it will mess up the pretty snowflake pattern on the bottom that will bake into the top of the shortbread. Also, wondering if since I'm going to use a mold with intricate patterns (snowflakes) should I spray the mold with non-stick spray first?
basilandbubbly says
You can do without the holes if the pan forms the dough into individual cookies. I think you would be fine without any cooking spray or grease in the mold. I'd love to know how they turn out for you!!