I made two different shortbread recipes. And although they were tasty it is not something I plan to make regularly. For some reason I got it in my head that I wanted to make shortbread. Possibly from watching the GBBO. The only other time I made shortbread was from Cook’s Illustrated: https://mykitchenmythoughts.com/2017/01/29/millionaires-shortbread-and-citrus-salad/. (I can no longer figure out how to make a name for the link other than copying it. WordPress changed a little a while ago.)

That shortbread was fancy. Since then I found a similar recipe in one of my UK published cookbooks. So when I was thinking of shortbread that is where I went first. Basically it is butter, sugar, and flour.

• 4 1/2 ounces butter, softened (what an odd amount!)
• scant 1/4 cup sugar
• generous 1/8 cup powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• pinch of salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• superfine sugar, for sprinkling (make this by processing regular sugar in your food processor)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 C). Grease an 8-inch round pan with butter. Beat butter and sugars until fluffy. Sift flour and salt into the mixture and then the vanilla. Mix to form a soft dough.

Roll dough into an 8-inch circle. Place in prepared pan. Cut into 8 wedges. Prick all over and decorate the edge with the fork tines. I found that this took a little finesse since it was already in the pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes. It might even take 40 minutes. It should be crisp and pale golden in color. Sprinkle with the superfine sugar. Cut through the wedges again to be sure they are separated. Cool in pan before removing.

These were very thick and buttery. Tasted like shortbread. Very rich.

The next shortbread dough I made was from Mark Bitman’s How to Cook Everything. I followed his recipe exactly. It includes an egg. I made a batch cutting them out in circles. I forgot to take a picture. They were a very nice butter cookie but did not taste like I thought shortbread should taste. The second batch I made of this recipe I tried to be festive and stuffed pieces of dough into a Christmas cookie mold pan. Big mistake!