Salted Caramel Shortbread Cookies - delicious cookie recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to making good shortbread cookies? ›

Shortbread should always have a tender, melting texture, but be slightly crisp when you bite into it. It should not generally be damp or wet underneath. A classic shortbread recipe will also only have flour, butter and sugar as the ingredients (in a 3:2:1 ratio) and not egg, which could lead to excess moisture.

Ideally, Use Salted Butter

Normally when I make Cookies, I always use unsalted butter so I can control the salt content, but I found with shortbread that when you add salt yourself, the salt never really dissolves or disperses as well. Using salted butter ensures even seasoning, and in my experience, a better cookie.

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.

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.

The key with shortbread is not to overhandle it. Make the dough exactly as instructed, but don't mess around making shapes or over rolling the dough - you will end up with delicious but tough biscuits. Stretching and pulling the dough activates the gluten in the flour, making chewy cookies and not crisp ones.

As Leiths also recommend chilling the dough before baking, although only for 15 minutes, I make another batch of their recipe with soft butter, stick it straight in the oven without passing the fridge, and end up with thinner, crunchier biscuits – presumably because the mixture spreads as the fat melts.

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.

Irish Shortbread Is Distinct From Scottish Shortbread

As cornstarch is a potent thickener relative to flour, this creates a denser cookie. Whichever version of shortbread you prefer, though, the original -- which is often just called "shortbread" -- came from Scotland.

One thing that all shortbread cookies benefit from is a slow bake in a consistent oven. Since they're such a crumbly cookie without much in the way of a binder, they need that time for the sugar to melt and bring everything together without getting too deeply browned.

Should butter be cold or room temperature for shortbread? ›

Make sure your butter is at the right temperature

Fine Cooking explains that the butter should be at refrigerator temperature. While many cookie recipes call for softened butter or at room temperature, if your butter isn't cold when making shortbread, it's likely to turn out greasy or be difficult to roll out.

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.

Unsalted butter for best results

Use unsalted butter for balanced flavour. Unsalted butter was traditionally used in baking because it was a superior product to salted - salt is used as a preservative so unsalted butter was thought to be fresher.

There are a few things you can do to add liquid to your cookie dough if it is too dry and crumbly. One option is to add milk, water, or another liquid until the dough is the right consistency. You can also try adding melted butter or shortening. If your dough is still too dry, you may need to add more flour.

Many shortbread recipes start by having you cream softened butter with sugar, incorporating the dough with what former Serious Eats editor Stella Parks describes as “micro pockets of air.” Because air is a poor conductor of heat, “it helps insulate the dough from the hot baking sheet in the oven, slowing the rate at ...

And once you have cut out or shaped your dough make sure you chill it for at least 30 minutes before baking so that the butter can re-solidify before reaching the heat of the oven.