Salted Caramel Shortbread Cookies - delicious cookie recipe (2024)

FAQs

What happens if you add too much butter to shortbread cookies? ›

Butter is an emulsifier and it makes cookies tender. It also adds in the crispy-around-the-edges element. Adding too much butter can cause the cookies to be flat and greasy. Adding too little butter can cause the cookies to be tough and crumbly.

If you don't have salted butter, unsalted butter will also work, simply add about ¼ teaspoon of salt to the cookie dough. The reason the salt is needed is because salt brings out the flavor in the cookies, without it, your cookies will taste bland.

Check doneness by looking for an even, light brown colour across the top of the biscuits, with slight darkening at the edges. Begin checking at the tail end of the cooking time. Undercooked shortbread will be doughy and chewy. Slightly overcooked and it will become chalky, brittle and hard.

Shortbread contains no leavening, such as baking powder, baking soda, or eggs. Sugar and butter cookies, on the other hand, generally include one or more of these ingredients. The lack of a leavening agent in shortbread contributes to its signature crumbly texture.

The most common mistakes when making shortbread are over-working the dough, and incorporating too much flour. The less you work the dough, the more crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth your shortbread cookies will be.

Avoid making your shortbread too thick

This is much thicker than a roll-and-slice sugar cookie — or really any other popular type of cookie. If you keep your dough any thicker, you risk the dough coming out of the oven raw. If it's any thinner, the cookie will have a crispy texture with the snap of a graham cracker.

Step 3: The Secret to the Absolute Best Shortbread

After shaping the cookies, don't rush to the oven! Instead, chill the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or so (overnight is OK, too). A short stay in the fridge will firm up the cookies and solidify the butter. This will help keep them from spreading too much.

Fine Cooking explains that the butter should be at refrigerator temperature. While many cookie recipes call for softened butter or at room temperature, if your butter isn't cold when making shortbread, it's likely to turn out greasy or be difficult to roll out.

Chilling the dough before baking will help the shortbread keep their shape while cooking. In the oven, the dough will spread as the butter in the mixture melts, but baking it from chilled helps reduce this effect. It's most important to do this if you are baking the shortbread in individual biscuits.

Why poke holes in shortbread? ›

The word "bread" comes from "biscuit bread" which was made from leftover bread dough that was sweetened and dried out in the oven to make biscuits. Why do you poke holes in shortbread? The holes allow the moisture to escape during baking and more even heat distribution. This helps dry out and crisp up the cookies.

Bake the shortbread until it's a light golden brown across the top surface and a deeper golden brown around the edges, about 35 minutes. Remove the shortbread from the oven and turn it out of the pans and onto a clean work surface.

Traditional Scottish shortbread is a simple recipe made with sugar, butter, flour, and salt. Other shortbread styles will include leavening agents like baking powder and baking soda, which makes them crisp instead of crumbly like traditional Scottish shortbread.

Unsalted butter is most commonly called for in baking recipes. Unsalted butter has a very neutral, creamy flavor—a great base for many baked goods. In baking, precise measurements are key for achieving the right flavor and texture. This even extends to small amounts of ingredients like salt.

This buttery delight uses baking powder to help it rise, giving it a fluffy consistency. Shortcakes are often split and topped with strawberries and cream. Shortbread is similar to shortcake but doesn't include baking powder. Lots of rich butter gives shortbread a high fat content, resulting in a fine, crumbly texture.

Increasing the amount of butter definitely makes the biscuit "taste" softer, more crumbly, and more flaky. I usually associate flakiness and softness with size; you expect a big biscuit to be fluffy and soft, and a biscuit that doesn't rise to be dense.

The higher the proportion of butter to other ingredients, the more tender your cookie will be (and consequently, the more it will spread as it bakes).

Butter doesn't affect just the flavour of your cookies, it has a major impact on their texture and structure, too.