Toby had some friends over poker the other day. He was going to make the mac and cheese he made for the open house – it uses something like two-and-a-half pounds of shredded cheese! It was amazingly yummy (and yea, completely off the keto-plan).
I asked what he’d like me to bake. He thought about it and decided on shortbread and biscotti; two of my staples. I decided to try a new recipe for the shortbread, rather than the usual Cook’s Illustrated one I usually do. So I opened up our cookbook book shelves and pulled out In the Sweet Kitchen.
I love making shortbread – the end result is usually pretty crowd pleasing without a lot of ingredients.
So Toby bought that butter. It’s awesome. Seriously, far superior to any of the supermarket brands. It’s pricey – $7 at St. Lawrence Market – but worth it for things like shortbread where the butter really shines.
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup rice flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 pound butter – room temperature but not soft
1 cup super-fine sugar.
Okay, about the sugar – you really don’t want to use regular granulated sugar. I think it makes a difference. But you don’t have to go buy any special sugar. Just modify your regular stuff.
Take your regular granulated sugar and put it in a coffee grinder. We have one that we only use for food prep.
Can you see the difference? Far smaller crystals. It’s much finer and feels softer.
Whip the butter and the sugar together: 
Then add in the flours and salt and prepare for baking. For this time I lined 2 9×9 baking pans with parchment paper and split the dough evenly between the two. The cookbook says it should fill 3 8×8 pans – but it worked okay with the 2 9x9s. I wouldn’t have wanted them any thinner than they were.
The cookies went into the oven for 30-35 minutes at 325f. I took them out at about the half-way point to score them into cookies. It makes it so much easier to cut them into cookies when they’re baked. The only advice I can give is to wait until the tops really have changed colour – they get a bit golden. I took these ones out a little early I think.
Sprinkle with sugar and then let cool a little. They were a big hit with the guys and it’s a good thing I snuck a few out to send to a friend before they came as there were only 2 left on Sunday!