Easy Chocolate Chip Shortbread Recipe - Cookies - Practically Homemade (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to making good shortbread cookies? ›

The most common mistakes when making shortbread are over-working the dough, and incorporating too much flour. The less you work the dough, the more crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth your shortbread cookies will be.

Cornstarch provides the shortbread with structure, but its biggest job is keeping the cookies extra soft, tender, and light. I love adding a small amount to chocolate chip cookies too. Optional Coarse Sugar Topping: For an optional sparkly crunch on your shortbread wedges, add a sprinkle of coarse sugar before baking.

Shortbread is called short because of the traditional ratio of one part sugar to two parts butter that lends a high fat content to the dough. This yields a soft, buttery crumb that melts in your mouth, similar to short crust pastry. This ratio is also what makes shortbread so crave-worthy.

The word "bread" comes from "biscuit bread" which was made from leftover bread dough that was sweetened and dried out in the oven to make biscuits. Why do you poke holes in shortbread? The holes allow the moisture to escape during baking and more even heat distribution. This helps dry out and crisp up the cookies.

Butter – You'll need salted butter that's at room temperature. It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour to bring the butter to room temperature, so make sure you give yourself enough time. If you don't have salted butter, unsalted butter will also work, simply add about ¼ teaspoon of salt to the cookie dough.

After shaping the cookies, don't rush to the oven! Instead, chill the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or so (overnight is OK, too). A short stay in the fridge will firm up the cookies and solidify the butter. This will help keep them from spreading too much.

Evenly coating the flour particles with fat in the form of melted butter makes it harder for gluten chains to form, resulting in buttery shortbread that melts in your mouth.

Chilling the dough before baking will help the shortbread keep their shape while cooking. In the oven, the dough will spread as the butter in the mixture melts, but baking it from chilled helps reduce this effect. It's most important to do this if you are baking the shortbread in individual biscuits.

Traditional Scottish shortbread is a simple recipe made with sugar, butter, flour, and salt. Other shortbread styles will include leavening agents like baking powder and baking soda, which makes them crisp instead of crumbly like traditional Scottish shortbread.

Why do you put shortbread in the fridge before baking? ›

Why do you put shortbread cut-out cookies in the fridge before baking? This is to resolidify the butter. The butter is at room temperature when making the dough resulting in a soft dough. If baked straight away, the butter would melt away immediately when hitting the hot oven and the shortbread would spread.

Remove the shortbread from the oven and turn it out of the pans and onto a clean work surface. Immediately cut the shortbread, while it's warm; if you wait until it's cool, it won't cut easily. Using a pizza wheel or sharp knife, cut each round into 12 wedges.

Rice Flour: if you want to get especially adventurous, substitute rice flour for the cake flour – it makes the shortbread even lighter and more crisp.

Avoid over-mixing the dough. Score the surface for even baking without bubbles or cracks. Chill the shaped dough thoroughly before baking. Cut the shortbread while it is still warm, for smooth, even slices.

And the flavor! One bite of a real shortbread cookie, with its fine crumb and rich sweet taste, is confectionary ecstasy. The best are the ones that balance the sweetness with a hint of salt.

Chilling the dough before baking will help the shortbread keep their shape while cooking. In the oven, the dough will spread as the butter in the mixture melts, but baking it from chilled helps reduce this effect. It's most important to do this if you are baking the shortbread in individual biscuits.

These proportions make shortbread a lot more dense compared to cookies, which means you could easily end up with shortbread that's hard and crunchy rather than buttery and crumbly. Per Cooktop Cove, this can occur when the dough has either been overworked or not chilled for long enough.

Mixing Butter & Sugar

If it's over-mixed, the air pockets decrease in size and are unable to hold their shape in the oven—causing your cookies to spread. It's best to cream butter and sugar on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes.

Bake the shortbread until it's a light golden brown across the top surface and a deeper golden brown around the edges, about 35 minutes. Remove the shortbread from the oven and turn it out of the pans and onto a clean work surface.