The Best Perfectly Buttery Shortbread
1 C. (2 sticks/225 g) salted butter, cut into tablespoons, at room temperature
¾ C. (150 g) granulated sugar (reserve a spoonful for sprinkling)
1 tsp. Diamond Crystal kosher salt
1¾ C. (255 g) all-purpose flour (if you aren’t using a scale, sift the flour, then scoop it into the measuring cups; go for 2 scant cups)
Optional 6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips or bars, roughly chopped
2 T. unsalted butter at room temperature, cut into ½-inch cubes
Flaky salt
1. Line an 8 × 8-inch pan with two wide strips of parchment paper, crossing over one another, for easy lift-out later. (You can use a 9 × 9-inch pan, or a 9-inch cake pan, and so on; just start checking the cookies earlier for doneness using the visual cues in step 4.) 2. In a large bowl, use a wooden spoon to combine the butter, sugar, and salt until mostly uniform but still dense; it will look like the store-bought almond paste you’d use to make rainbow cookies. Add the flour. Integrate into the butter mixture with the wooden spoon, or your hands, or a fork, or some combination—the resulting mixture will look like crumbles of streusel, and if you pinch one, the insides should be uniform (not just a clump of butter coated in flour). Press the crumbles evenly into the pan. 3. Cover tightly and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour, or up to 24 hours. 4. Heat the oven to 300°F. Sprinkle the reserved sugar evenly over the dough. Use a fork to “dock” the surface, i.e. make holes all over that go about halfway down. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until barely golden around the edges and just set and dry to the touch in the center. 5. Let cool for about 10 minutes, then lift out of the pan using the parchment overhangs. Carefully cut into 8 square bars, or 16 long rectangular bars. 6. If topping with chocolate, melt two-thirds (about 4 ounces) of the chocolate in 10-second bursts in the micro wave, stirring between each one. When melted, add the rest of the chocolate and the butter and stir until melted. Return to the microwave for 10 seconds. Stir. (Repeat if not silky smooth. Chocolate is fickle.) 7. Dip each shortbread cookie into the chocolate to cover it partially. Sprinkle with flaky salt. Set on a rimmed rack in the fridge to let the chocolate harden. Store loosely covered at room temperature or tightly covered in the refrigerator. These also freeze very well, tightly covered, for weeks.
Milk Powder Shortbread
Swap in 1/3 C. (48 g) whole milk powder for 48 g (roughly a heaping 1/3 cup) of the all-purpose flour; the best way to do this is to measure out the 48 g whole milk powder in a bowl on the scale, and then add all-purpose flour until you reach the full 255 g. These will finish baking about 5 minutes earlier than the standard recipe; start checking at 3 5 minutes.
Vanilla Bean-Citrus Sugar Shortbread
Just before you make the shortbread, rub 2 T. citrus zest into the sugar. Scrape the insides of 2 vanilla beans or add 1 T. vanilla bean paste into the butter mixture before you mix in the flour.
Salty Chocolate Buckwheat Shortbread
Swap in 40 g (scant 1/3 cup) buckwheat flour for 40 g (heaping 1/4 cup) of the all-purpose flour. Add 40 g (scant 1/2 cup) cocoa powder. Before making the dough, toast both flours and cocoa powder on a parchment-lined sheet pan at 300°F for 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool, get rid of any lumps with a whisk or fork, and add to the recipe in place of the plain flour.
Tahini Date Shortbread
Swap in 3 T. tahini for 3 T. of the butter. Before baking, drizzle the shortbread with tahini, pinches of the reserved sugar, and several pitted, finely diced dates.
Toasted Rice Flour and Jam Shortbread
Swap in 70 g (scant 1/2 cup) rice flour for 70 g (scant ¥2 cup) of the total flour. Toast both flours on a parchment-lined sheet pan at 3 00°F for 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool, then use in the recipe in place of the all-purpose flour. Before baking the dough, dollop a few tsp. of raspberry jam on the surface and use a martini pick, toothpick, or knife to swirl it, without integrating it too much (leave the swirls distinct). You could also swirl some peanut butter into the surface. Bake as directed.
Browned Butter Shortbread
Brown half of the butter in a small saucepan; when it foams, add 2 T. milk powder and whisk. Let the mixture come back to a soft room temperature, then add the rest of the room-temperature butter and proceed with the recipe.
Grape-Nuts Shortbread
Sprinkle 1/4 C. Grape-Nuts plus 1 T. additional sugar evenly over the parchment in the pan. Press the dough into it as if the sugary Grape-Nuts are a roughly hewn bottom crust. Before chilling the dough, sprinkle an additional ¼ C. Grape-Nuts and 1 more T. sugar over the dough. Press hard so some of the cereal wedges into the top of the dough. Bake as directed.
2 tsp. olive oil
oasted Garlic Tahini Carrot Dip
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