December 14, 2011

Shortbread cookies

What else would be more soul-filling than a hot, melt-in-the-mouth, delicious treat on a cold evening.  Okay, let me break the suspense ... its time for some buttery, flaky, heavenly shortbread cookies .. tadaaaaaa !!!! (That 's my daughters expression for surprising someone!)


I have been wanting to make cookies/cakes for quite a while and since then, have been doing my homework in collecting the recipes. Now that recently I bought a hand-held electric mixer, I decided to give it a try. Believe me, shortbread cookies came out to be simply delicious & mouth-watering. The texture of the cookies were very soft yet crispy (as it cooled). Not to forget the tempting aroma of the baked cookies that filled the entire house. My hubby & my kid just couldn't wait to taste the cookies and so, I had to literally rush myself to take a few pics.


As far as  the recipe for the shortbread cookies goes, you cannot make any mistakes. The recipe is very simple and also uses minimal ingredients.

Ingredients
All purpose flour - 1.5 cups
Unsalted butter - 1 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence - 1/4 tsp
Salt - less than a pinch

Method
Cream butter until light and fluffy using a whisk. The secret to tender, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread is to really cream the butter!!! Stir in vanilla.


Sift all purpose flour & sugar to get a fine powder. Add to butter in 2-3 batches; blend until smooth with mixer everytime after adding the dry ingredients. Refrigerate the dough for 15 -20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. With hands roll dough into small balls. Place them on the cookie sheet and flatten them lightly with a fork (I floured my fork by dipping in granulated sugar).


Bake 20 – 30 minutes or until outer edges start to brown slightly (It took exactly 25 mins for my oven to bake them). Let them cool and wait to watch the cookies disappear :)


Share these tempting "yum" shortbread cookies with your family & friends during this holiday season :) Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!


Note: Since, this is my first experience with cookies, I tried with only about 1/3 cups of flour and it gave me about 15-18 cookies.

Events
(1) Linking to "Let's cook #10 - Baked Goodies" hosted by Radhika.
(2) Linking to "Jingle-all-way-event" hosted by Kavi.

2 comments :

  1. great cookies
    Would love to include it in my event. If possible, please go through the rules of my event Jingle All The Way and link your post there.
    Thanks!
    Kavi
    (Edible Entertainment)
    Ongoing events:
    Jingle All The Way &
    Microwave Easy Cooking
    Have a great day!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cookies are so yummm. Thanks for linking it to the event.

    ReplyDelete