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Thee Best Shortbread Cookies - CaliZona

Approx 35 medium-sized cookies

Ingredients

  • 2 Sticks Salted Butter - room temperature
  • 1/2 Cup Sugar I used beet sugar
  • 2 1/3 Cups  All-Purpose Flour
  • Pinch of Sea Salt

Instructions

  1. Make sure the butter is at room temperature.
  2. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  3. Cream the butter, sugar and pinch of salt in a food processor or mixer until creamy.
  4. Add flour and mix well. It will be crumbly.
  5. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
  6. Dump the dough onto a flat surface and form it into a disk with your hands.
  7. Cut the dough into two and form each into a flat disk.
  8. The edges tend to crack, but this is what makes the cookies so flaky and good!
  9. Sprinkle a little flour onto your surface. I use a large cutting board.
  10. Sprinkle a little flour on top of the dough.
  11. Roll out dough about 1/4 inch thick, if it cracks on the surface, it will seal up when you roll the dough the other way.
  12. Press the sides together closing any cracks along the edges.
  13. If you need, sprinkle a little more flour on top and roll it again, it will still crack just roll in all directions and it will seal itself up but you still might have to press it together.
  14. With the cookie cutters of your choice, cut and place cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
  15. Baking time depends on the size of the cookies and where you live.  The smallest ones took 9-10 minutes and the medium took 10 to 12 minutes, just check on them.
  16. Make sure to keep an eye on them, pull them out of the oven before the edges turn golden, the bottom should only be slightly golden.
  17. Be careful when transferring to a cooling rack, they are fragile until cooled.

Recipe Notes

I like to use two sheets of parchment so that when one batch is in the oven, I can still continue rolling out the dough and cutting more cookies.  I then quickly pull the parchment of cookies onto the baking tray when it is available.