No Shortage of Shortbread!

Happy Monday everyone! This weekend, in honor of a visit from my dad, I made vanilla bean shortbread. With this recipe, there's a few additions, changes, tweaks, but most importantly, paying attention in the oven. I started out with a recipe from Ms. Ina Garten and played around from there. Enjoy!

After the dough is made, refrigerate for an hour.

Roll out the dough and use a cutter of choice to make shapes.

While some cookie sheets go in the oven,
leave the others in the fridge so they stay firm.

Into the oven they go!

Fresh from the oven. 

Dip into chocolate; put in the fridge for about 30 min to harden.

Shortbread Cookies

Ina Garten, 2008

Ingredients

• 3/4 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (I also scraped in the inside of a vanilla bean)
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 to 7 ounces very good semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the butter and 1 cup of sugar until they are just combined. Add the vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and salt, then add them to the butter-and-sugar mixture. Mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together. Dump onto a surface dusted with flour and shape into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.
3. Roll the dough 1/2-inch thick and cut with a 3 by 1-inch finger-shaped cutter. Place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Allow to cool to room temperature.
4. When the cookies are cool, place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Put 3 ounces of the chocolate in a glass bowl and microwave on high power for 30 seconds. (Don't trust your microwave timer; time it with your watch.) Stir with a wooden spoon. Continue to heat and stir in 30-second increments until the chocolate is just melted. Add the remaining chocolate and allow it to sit at room temperature, stirring often, until it's completely smooth. Stir vigorously until the chocolate is smooth and slightly cooled; stirring makes it glossier. **I used the double boiler method - it gives you much better results than a microwave. Remember, put a glass bowl on a tiny amount of simmering water. Fill with chocolate and let melt. 
5. Drizzle 1/2 of each cookie with just enough chocolate to coat it.



Tada!

Lizzy Bee's Note: Be sure to watch the cookies while they bake. They don't necessarily take 25 minutes, or even 20. Depending on your thickness, they make get darker or lighter. 

Happy baking!