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.

Avoid making your shortbread too thick

This is much thicker than a roll-and-slice sugar cookie — or really any other popular type of cookie. If you keep your dough any thicker, you risk the dough coming out of the oven raw. If it's any thinner, the cookie will have a crispy texture with the snap of a graham cracker.

Due to differing ratios, shortbread cookies are crumblier and more "sandy" than butter cookies, which are firm and solid enough to be iced. This mostly has to do with flour and eggs. Shortbread doesn't use eggs, while butter cookies do, making butter cookie dough more pliable and robust than its shortbread counterpart.

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.

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.

Piercing the shortbread with a fork is not only for decoration, but it's meant for more even baking. Poking holes in the shortbread allows the heat to penetrate the cookie, hence more even baking. Notice I'm using powdered sugar here. You'll see lots of shortbread recipes using granulated sugar.

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.

Always start with cold butter straight from the refrigerator. This will keep the dough from warming up, making it greasy and difficult to roll out. If the dough does get soft or sticky as you're rolling or cutting it, just put it back in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes to chill the butter.

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.

Should you refrigerate shortbread dough before baking? ›

Shortbread is the easiest cookie dough to make ahead and bake as needed. This recipe needs to be chilled for only 30 minutes and yields 24 tender shortbread cookies.

Since you will be cooking your shortbread in the lower third of the oven, you will get some top browning as the cookie bakes. The surface of the shortbread should be a toasty light brown when it is cooked. It should never appear raw or slightly opaque in the middle.

Shortbread is similar to shortcake but doesn't include baking powder. Lots of rich butter gives shortbread a high fat content, resulting in a fine, crumbly texture. Shortcake and shortbread biscuits are delicious on their own, with fruit and cream, or simply topped with a delicate dusting of sugar.

Cookies and shortbreads traditionally use butter for richness and density but rely less on butter for the lift needed in recipes like cakes. For this reason, cookies are often much easier to make dairy-free. Simply replacing the butter with margarine or vegetable shortening almost always does the trick.

The best butter for your baked goods depends on what type of recipe you're whipping up. Unsalted, American-style butter works well in goods like cookies, pound cakes and pancakes that require the high-fat content of conventional butter and more flexibility with salt and flavor content.

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.

Butter is an emulsifier and it makes cookies tender. It also adds in the crispy-around-the-edges element. Adding too much butter can cause the cookies to be flat and greasy. Adding too little butter can cause the cookies to be tough and crumbly.

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.