Prep Time
15 minutes
Total Time
40 minutes plus chilling
This buttery shortbread cookie may not be the most classic Scottish or Irish sort, but it may be the most tender. Shortbread’s texture can be crackly or melt in your mouth, depending on how much butter you use, which sugar you choose (powdered sugar gives tenderness; granulated sugar, crunch), and whether or not you add eggs. This crumbly shortbread recipe came about when I made a mistake in a recipe that a Parisian pastry chef gave me decades ago. The chef had used an egg yolk in the cookie dough and another to brush the logs of dough.
I inadvertently added both yolks to the dough and have been making the cookies that way ever since. They don’t hold their shape as prettily as most other shortbreads, but they’re so tasty.
The shortbreads made with whole wheat flour are a great morning cookie; the rye and chocolate cookies are an unexpected mix of earthy and indulgent; and the ones made with spelt are especially good with fruit or ice cream. Any of them would be a welcome addition to a Christmas cookie platter—or any holiday cookie platter, for that matter.
Plan ahead: The dough needs to be refrigerated for a minimum of 3 hours (overnight is better) or frozen for at least 2 hours.
Editor’s Note: This recipe was originally published in ‘Baking With Dorie’ as Tenderest Shortbread, Four Ways and first appeared on this website October 13, 2021.
Ingredients
Makes about 24 cookies
For the Original Shortbread
For the Whole Wheat Shortbread
For the Rye-Chocolate Shortbread
For the Spelt-Flax Shortbread
Step 1
All of the shortbreads are made in the same manner using an electric mixer. If you’re making a shortbread with two kinds of flour, whisk the flours together.
Step 2
Working in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat the butter, confectioners’ sugar, salt and zest, if using, together on medium speed until soft, creamy and homogenous, scraping the bowl as needed. One by one, beat in the yolks, followed by the vanilla.
Step 3
Turn off the mixer, add the flour(s) all at once and mix on low speed only until incorporated. If you’ve got wheat germ, chocolate or flax seeds or nuts, mix in now.
Step 4
Scrape the dough out onto the work surface and divide it in two; the dough will be soft and sticky. Put each piece on a sheet of parchment and cajole it into a log that’s 6 to 6 1⁄2 inches long, tightening the log with the paper and twisting the ends. Refrigerate the logs for at least 3 hours (overnight is better) or freeze them for 2 hours. (The logs can be frozen for up 2 months; slice when they're still frozen. You might need to add a minute to the oven time.)
Step 5
When you're ready to bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat it to 350°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a baking mat.
Step 6
Using a chef’s knife, cut each log into 1⁄2-inch-thick rounds. Lay them out on the baking sheet, leaving about an inch between them.
Step 7
Bake, rotating the cookie sheet after 10 minutes, for 21 to 23 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown around the edges and set. The cookies will still be soft, so leave them on the sheet for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack and allowing them to cool to room temperature.
DO AHEAD: The cookies can be packed in an airtight container and kept at room temperature for at least 5 days.
You can turn these slice-and-bake cookies into roll-and-cut cookies: Roll the chilled dough on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin to a ½-inch thickness. Use your favorite cookie cutters to cut cookies to your desired shape then transfer to a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Chill 30 minutes before baking as directed above. Decorate the cooled cookies with melted chocolate, or royal icing and sprinkles, or eat them plain.
Having a cookie party? Pile these tender, flavorful shortbread cookies onto a platter with pecan thumbprints, food-processor spritz cookies, classic sugar cookies, chewy brown-sugar molasses cookies, powdered sugar–covered almond butter cookies, and more options from our list of best cookie recipes. For almond-flavored shortbread, substitute our favorite almond extract for half the amount of vanilla extract used in these cookies.
Leave a Review
Reviews (12)
Back to TopButter biscuits of some sort, perhaps, but as Anonymous New Hampshire says, NOT shortbread.
BARRY
SLC, UT
10/7/2023
I am appalled at how rude readers on Epicurious, as well as NYTimes are! Were you people born in a barn. You have no social graces. Please don’t sully a recipe. Just don’t cook it!
Anonymous
Grand Rapids Mi
9/4/2023
Great cookie but not Shortbread by any stretch of imagination...
Anonymous
New Hampshire
12/20/2021
These sound lovely - I am looking forward to making them. Especially as I have a Danish great grandmother and a Scottish granny ❤❤🌻🌻
Sharon
Vietnam
10/16/2021
Such an easy recipe and loved by all! I switched it up a bit by using the lemon rind in the classic versions but shredding in some bittersweet chocolate and slicing them about 1/4”.
Debbie
White Plains, NY
10/16/2021
OMG, the biddies in the comments getting all up in their feels. Go take a nap, it's a cookie ffs. May I add, a delicious one especially a version with minced kalamata olives ala Heidi Swanson. Perfect for your charcuterie plates. (And yes, Karens, I know charcuterie traditionally refers to meat only.)
Erin
RC, SoDak
10/15/2021
As pointed out by others, this is not a shortbread recipe. However, it may be a very good butter cookie recipe, as pointed out by Annette. Jeez. Just call things what they are. And yes, some of us enjoy knowing the history of baking in various countries, cultures, etc., and it is important to us that some sense of accuracy is maintained.
Kathleen
Fort Worth TX
10/14/2021
Shortbread is not meant to be ' healthy' ,, its a basic, wonderful cookie, made with just three ingredients, ,, or unless you are making it for an appitizer,, then lemon rosemary shortbread is lovely, goes well with scotch.. and its not what is expected when I hear shortbread,, leave the basics alone, the above cookies sound fine, but are not shortbread,, so there
Anonymous
Edmonton Alberta Canada
10/14/2021
Umm.. my review, which states that this recipe, though no doubt very fine, is NOT shortbread if it is 'tender' or contains eggs, has disappeared. 1-2-3 sugar, butter, flours. If we value the history behind food, the geography and anthropology of ingredients and preparation, it applies everywhere, including the British Isles.
Anonymous
GB
10/14/2021
Thank you Canada baker - my hackles were rising at not just one but TWO eggs! Traditional Scottish shortbread is not meant to be 'tender' and is the classic one-two-three biscuit [Br. Eng.] cut thick to be portable. The variant is whether you can afford or obtain all butter and whether in your family rice flour is added for texture. In these times of food appropriation and appellation controllée, I can say that the recipe here is no doubt excellent patisserie, but it is not Shortbread which does what it says on the tin.
petal jam
UK
10/14/2021
This bares a great similarity to my grandmother's recipe which we brought with us from Denmark in 1955. We use 2 egg yolks, all-purpose flour, powdered sugar, and salted butter. The proportions are EVERYTHING, and all ingredients are weighed.except the eggs. Salted butter because the recipe predates easy access to refrigeration. My father's mother was born in 1900, and was a fabulous baker who worked at one of the finest hotel bakeries in Denmark in her youth. We think this recipe comes from the 400-year old inn her family lived in and owned when she was born. My grandmother's cookies are amazing, and often described as the best butter cookie ever by American tasters. Apologies to the British, who think eggs of any kind in a shortbread cookie are an abomination!
Annette
Oakland, California
10/14/2021
If the thought of eggs in shortbread is abhorrent, just make the recipe and call it by a different name.
Anonymous
10/14/2021
Well, call me a fuddy duddy but I just heard every British short bread maker turning over in their collective graves ! EGGS.....IN .....SHORTBREAD. Good thing my Mam cannot read this. I shall give this a miss thanks all the same. Cheers.
Anonymous
Montreal, Canada.
10/13/2021
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