Shortbread is one of the simplest cookies you can make… the “cleanest” recipes only include three ingredients. Flour, Sugar, and Butter.

I’ve made many different shortbread recipes in my day (haha… my day), but this one is the clearest winner.

The World’s Best Shortbread Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup of REAL butter. No substitutions allowed.

1/2 cup of brown sugar, packed

2+ cups of flour.

Oven = 325 degrees Fahrenheit

Cream the butter and sugar together. I generally use the back of a fork, or my fingertips (not palms, or the butter will get too soft). If my butter is too cold and I don’t have time to wait for it to soften, I use a potato masher and a lot of arm muscle.

Add about 2 cups of flour. Mix well.

Sprinkle your table, wax-paper, or silicone baking mat liberally with flour. Turn your dough onto the floured surface and knead.

Knead, adding flour until the dough is smooth and not sticky.

Roll the dough out to about 1/2 inch thickness and cut. Rectangles with fork-pierced patterns are classic, but you can also do triangles or other shapes.

Bake for 20-23 minutes, until they’re done and delicious.

Now, there are so many things you can do to dress up shortbread. In the making-dough stage, you can add a bit of vanilla, almond, or lemon extract.

In the cookie-forming stage, you could choose to wrap Andes mints with the dough…

Or you could wait until after they’re baked to dress them up.

These cookies were just balls that I flattened and baked. After baking, I sandwiched an Andes mint between two cookies while they were still warm. As the mint melted, I twisted the cookies slightly to evenly-ish disperse the chocolaty mint goodness.

Or the simple route…

I made my mother some shortbread cookies for her birthday, and dressed them up another way.

Simply melt some chocolate in the microwave and stir in a tablespoon or so of shortening, so that the chocolate is really smooth. Then, when the cookies are cooled, dip one end in the chocolate and sprinkle with sliced almonds. Lay on a wax paper sheet to harden. Delicious!

Also, it’s fantastic plain.

Do you dress up your shortbread? What do you do?