Here’s a bit of a different and delicious take on shortbread. The key ingredients that really make a difference are the copious amounts of brown butter and milk powder. The brown butter imparts a nutty flavor, and the browned solids make for a great texture.
Maybe don’t be too concerned about cutting these so they’re of equal size and shape. There’s something to be said about weird-shaped cookies.
These are based on a recipe by America’s Test Kitchen
What you’ll need
- 2.5 sticks (20T) unsalted butter
- 2 cups (284 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1t table salt
- 0.5t baking soda
- 0.5t baking powder
- 1.33 cups (265 grams) sugar
- 0.25 cups (21 grams) nonfat dry milk powder
- 2t vanilla extract
- 2t water
What to do
To brown the butter, melt it in a 12-inch heavy-bottomed frypan over medium-high heat. Cook, swirling the butter often, until the solids in butter are color of milk chocolate and have toasty aroma. This process will take a few minutes; keep an eye on it, as it can go from browned to burnt very quickly. Remove the frypan from the heat and transfer the browned butter to bowl of stand mixer and put that in the refrigerator. Depending on the size of your mixer bowl, you may not be able to get it into the refrigerator. If that’s the case, just put the butter in a glass bowl and put that in the fridge. Let it cool in the refrigerator until opaque in color and completely cool. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and begin heating the oven to 325 degrees F while the butter cools.
Meanwhile, whisk the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder together in medium bowl. If you cooled the butter in a separate bowl, just scrape it into the stand-mixer bowl. With the mixer’s paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar and milk powder on medium-high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and water and continue mixing until fully combined, scraping down the bowl with a silicone spatula, as needed. With the mixer running at low speed, gradually mix in the flour mixture until combined.
Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces. Cover one piece in plastic and place the other in the center of a large sheet of parchment paper and press it into about a 4-inch square. Place a second large sheet of parchment over the flattened dough and roll it into a *10-inch square, about 0.25-inch thick. Remove the top piece of parchment.
Using pizza cutter or chef’s knife, trim away outer perimeter of the dough to make clean edges. If you follow their prescription: Cut the dough in 3 equal strips lengthwise (about 3 inches each), then cut into 9 equal strips crosswise (about 1 inch each).
Slide the sheet of parchment onto a baking sheet (leaving the cookies touching). Repeat with the remaining dough.
Bake the cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until the edges are just golden, 16 to 24 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through baking. Once you hit the 16-minute mark, check them for doneness every minute.
Let the cookies cool for 10 minutes in the sheet pan. ATK’s instructions say to cut the shortbread at the scored marks to separate, then let them cool completely. I let them cool, then broke the cookies off at the score marks. Either way seems effective.
The cookies can be stored at room temperature for up to 10 days—as if they’d last that long. *Here’s where you can get a bit creative with the cookie shapes. It’s really hard to roll the dough into a roughly-shaped rectangle, so I didn’t try. I just got the dough evened out at 0.25 inches thick, and didn’t care about the shape. You can see in the photo the cuts I made. The weird shapes still tasted delicious.
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