Bolu by Rima: Food Time: Shortbread Cookies

Oh yes. Food. Gotta love food.

Oh yes. Cookies. Gotta love cookies.

Oh yes. Shortbread Cookies. Buttery cookies. Gotta love Shortbread Cookies.

I made these last week because I got some cookie cutters that I just wanted to use. I know, they're just the plain ol' round and square ones. But I've never took the interest to make sugar cookies. I'm a huge shortbread cookies fan. Mmm... buttery cookies melting in my mouth. Nom.

So on my fabulous day off after a rough call night, I stood there in the kitchen for 7 hours! 7 hours for making these cookies?!?! YES! I tried a recipe that I found online and that was a COMPLETE DISASTER! It was SALTY to the point I felt my blood pressure rising! I was sooo bummed after wasting good butter on this failed batch, I dumped the whole dough and made cookies down the trash. I was all happy on how it came out (appearance-wise) but sadly to waste great ingredients.

Being the hard worker me (tee hee), I didn't want to give up (plus I promised my doctor at werk that I was gonna bake something) so I immediately made another batch... Now, with the recipe of one my favorite baker from New York, Sarabeth. I remember going to her bakery at Chelsea Market on my first NYC trip, and purchased a jar of her shortbread cookies. It was BOMBIZZLE. Once I hit Cali, the cookies were gone and sadness appeared. Then thanks to google, I found her recipe online on her website. Score.

Seriously, the ingredients are soooo simple.

Sorry the images aren't the greatest. These were taking at 11 PM, after my back gave up on me.

Shortbread Cookies
makes about 20 - 30 cookies. Depends on your cutter size. Adapted from Sarabeth.

Awesome ingredients:

1 cup of butter, chilled, cut in to small cubes
1/2 cup of superfine/baker/confectioner sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 2/3 cup of Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
optional: White Chocolate Chips or Chocolate Chips, melted

What to do... What to do...

Beat the butter, sugar, & vanilla in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed until color is light/pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
Switch to stir/super low speed, slowly add the flour, mix until dough is just combined. Don't overmix. With your hand (flour them if you may), shape the dough in to a ball.
On a lightly floured surface, place the dough on the surface and sprinkle some awesome flour on the top. With a roller pin, roll the dough in to a rectangular or disk, 1/2 inch thick. Wrap with a saran wrap, placed on baking sheet, and refrigerate for about 30 min - 1 hour, until chill and firm, but not hard. Meanwhile, heat the oven at 350F.
Sprinkle some flour on top your surface and remove the dough from the fridge. Sprinkle the top with flour. Grap your roller pin, and roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thick.
Memo: if the dough cracks, it's too cold. Let it sit in room temp for 5 to 10 minutes. This happened to me!)
Now grab your fun cookie cutters, dip them in flour and cut your dough! When you're out of room, reshape the scrapes in to a ball and roll out again and cut!
Transfer cookies on to a cookie sheet, make sure you create some space in between cookies.
Bake for about 10 - 12 minutes, until cookies are lightly brown.
Remove from oven, let cool completely on cookie sheet on top of a cooling rack.
If you're gonna dip your cookies in chocolate, like I did, make sure the cookies are completely cooled down. Dip them in the chocolate, placed on baking sheet and refrigerate for about 10 - 15 minutes, until chocolate becomes firm.
Now go make some Earl Grey Tea (or this one!), light the fire, grab a novel and eat away.

You can use regular All Purpose Flour if you want. At the time, I just want to use up my Whole Wheat Pastry flour because I didn't have a container for it. Haha. But it actually made the cookies tastier. I loved the texture of the cookies. Feel free to cover the cookies in Royal Icing. I'm pretty sure it'll be good as well.

I still want to master the art of rolling the dough. I want to get a ceramic rolling pin. Hm. get me one please? Like this,