Easy and Delicious Shortbread Cookies

Hey bakers, John Kanell here, and today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making a classic shortbread cookie. These maybe won't win a beauty contest, but they are so delicious and just everything you want a shortbread cookie to be. They come together in a snap. You can make them ahead, keep them in the freezer, pop them into the oven when you have company, and be a total hero. Let's get started. I'm adding 10 tablespoons or 142 grams of unsalted butter. That's at room temperature, into my stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Although you could probably do this, you know, with hand beaters as well. I'm adding in a half teaspoon of salt, and now mix it up. After a couple seconds of creaming, you can add in a half a cup of confectioner's sugar. Now we're gonna beat this until it's nice and light, uniform and fluffy. You can do a dish or two and then come back. It's looking good. I'm gonna add in half a teaspoon of vanilla, and let me just show you what it looks like. It's kind of like a beautiful buttercream right now, except it's like sweet, really nice butter. Let's take this off of the mixer for a moment. I'm just measuring out 180 grams of flour. I should've done this at the beginning, but I didn't. That's one and a half cups if you're using cups. Very nice, okay. Setting that aside, back to this business. I'm adding the flour in, in a couple batches while this mixes on low. Okay, almost done, and there we go. Okay, it's all mixed up. This is all mixed up. We're gonna transfer this onto a sheet of plastic, and instead of rolling these cookies out, what we're gonna do is form it into a rectangular prism that we can just slice to make those little beautiful biscuits. Just press it together. On a lightly floured surface, I'm just gonna actually knead this with my hands first just to push it together like a pizza dough. I want it to be really cohesive, no cracks inside. We're gonna form this into a brick. One, two, three, four. I'm channeling a European butter maker. I'm doing a horrible job at it. All right, so anyways, this will get sliced, so all I need is a cross-section that looks like a nice rectangle. Okay, I'm just gonna give it a little tap, tap that dough. This feels knotty for some reason. My brick has been formed. It's gonna go into the fridge to chill. I might even be brave and put it in the freezer. I want it to keep that shape. So it's gonna go into the fridge now, and we'll be back once it's nice and firm. So my shortbread is nice and chilled. Look at this. It's like a block. All right, exactly how I wanted it, a block. Anyways, we're gonna cut it up now. So take one end piece off. Look at that beautiful, nice consistency. That's what you want shortbread dough to be like. Let's cut it into uniform slices. I actually have a great shortbread cookie recipe with tons of spices loaded with toasted pecans. You can click up here, head over to the blog for that. It is delicious, but it's not easy to cut because of all those pecans in there. This cuts like a dream, especially with my sharp knife. Because it uses powdered sugar, it has a really, really fine consistency. I shouldn't be eating this, but I am. So now we're just gonna set our little bricks up on here. I'm using a Silpat, but you can use parchment paper on a baking sheet or whatever you want. Space them evenly apart. And now for the docking, this is really just because, you know, a shortbread biscuit is a biscuit, and biscuits have those little holes. This will help you attain that look, but it's totally optional. Into the oven, 350 for 10 minutes, flip around halfway through. So if you love this easy recipe, but want a challenge, try my French macaron. They are challenging, but worth it because after you get it right, you'll be so happy. Seeing this cookie come out of the oven, I was like, oh, so pure, like an angel come down to earth. That is so good. I like this better than a sugar cookie, if I'm gonna be honest. The salt was so important. Never skip the salt in this cookie. Thanks for watching. If you like my videos, hit that like button and subscribe, and I'll see you soon.