Christmas Shortbread Recipes

Shortbread has no egg and no baking powder or soda. It is butter, sugar and flour, roughly one part sugar to two parts butter to three parts flour, plus a pinch of salt. With nothing to make it rise, the texture comes from the butter and from how little you work the dough, so it bakes up tender and sandy where a sugar cookie puffs and stays soft. All that butter is also why shortbread keeps for weeks and tastes better on day three than on day one.

Tough shortbread was worked too hard or got too much flour. Mix only until the dough holds together when squeezed, and spoon and level the flour (or weigh it) instead of scooping, which packs in extra. Shortbread that crumbles apart after baking usually had butter that was too cold to bind or came out of the oven early. Let the butter soften until a finger leaves a dent, press a dry dough together with warm hands instead of adding liquid, and bake until the edges are just turning pale gold.

Both work, and they make different cookies. Powdered sugar dissolves into the butter and gives the fine, melt-in-the-mouth crumb of a bakery shortbread. Granulated or superfine sugar gives a crisper snap with a little crunch, the classic Scottish style. Swapping a few tablespoons of the flour for cornstarch or rice flour makes either version sandier and more tender. For crunch on top, press the shaped dough into White Sparkling Sugar before baking; the extra-coarse crystals are heat-resistant and keep their sparkle through the oven.

Chill the cut shapes on the tray for 20 to 30 minutes, until firm, and bake them straight from the fridge. Cream the butter and sugar only until smooth, because whipped-in air makes the cookies puff and lose their edges. Dock rounds and wedges with a fork so they bake flat, and use a low oven, around 300 to 325F, for a longer, gentler bake. For stamped or embossed cookies, stamp cold dough that has been rolled and chilled, and dust the stamp with flour between presses.

Further than almost any other cookie. Baked shortbread keeps one to two weeks in an airtight tin at room temperature, and three months in the freezer. Slice-and-bake logs freeze for up to three months: slice them from frozen and add a minute or two to the bake. Roll the logs in Naturally-Colored Sanding Sugars before they go in the freezer and the red and green, colored by plants with no synthetic dyes, is already on when you slice. Bake iced or chocolate-dipped shortbread last, a few days ahead.

Yes, and it is one of the best places to use it. Shortbread has so few ingredients that the flour is half the flavor. Start by swapping a third to half of the all-purpose for whole wheat flour; an all-whole-wheat shortbread bakes up sandier and more rustic. Whole wheat KAMUT flour is the one to try first, with a naturally nutty, buttery taste that suits a butter cookie. The bran drinks a little more butter, so let the dough rest ten minutes before you roll or press it.