When making shortbread cookies, go big

Some of you will recall that I had a butter taste test a few weeks back. Since then, I’ve had a large quantity of butter in the refrigerator that wasn’t going away very fast. How about a batch of cookies?

Shortbread cookies are popular in this house, so I made a batch. A big batch. I pulled out my pencil and figured a recipe to use 8 pounds of butter in one batch. That should take care of the butter bounty I had.

What I didn’t fully consider was how big of a batch that would be. I have a 10-quart commercial mixer, but it didn’t fit in that bowl. So I grabbed the largest bowl I had in the house and carefully transferred the ingredients into it. I then carefully mixed up the dough by hand. The batch really didn’t fit well in the bowl, so I had to be super careful not to dump flour over the edges. With a batch this big, surely some would actually make it to the oven, as the dough is still very popular here, especially since I don’t have to worry about raw eggs.

My next favorite cookies to make are thumbprints. I don’t recall making them as a kid, but I certainly did make bunches of them as a commercial baker in the Basin.

I did a lot of baking back in the days whe. we still made the cookies in store from scratch, not like today where a lot of them are pre-made in a factory somewhere and shipped in frozen clamshell containers ready to sell to the public. One of my favorites was the thumbprint. We’d make up the dough and take chunks of the dough, roll them into logs, cut into bite-sized pieces, place them on a sheet pan, and then stick a finger in each piece to place a depression in each. One big difference between this and making them commercially was that we used shortening, whereas butter is a much better flavored ingredient.

What is the best filling for thumbprints? Chocolate. With that in mind, we would bake those cookies with no filling, allow them to cool completely, then fill with the chocolate topping we had in the bakery. Most commonly used was the chocolate topping used for donuts, except we didn’t heat it up but just put some in a piping bag and squeezed a dollop onto each cookie. If we wanted to fill the cookie with a jam, this was piped onto the raw dough and baked with the cookie. This dried out the jam a bit allowing it to be less sticky, though still soft enough to bite through. The thumbprints I made in the picture I filled with a fig jam I recently came across, but you could easily use any flavor you’d like. I’d steer away from jellies, as they may dissolve too much and melt all over the cookie.

SHORTBREAD COOKIES

2 cups butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Beat in the flour. Scoop out even amount of dough and drop them onto parchment lined baking sheets, leaving space between the cookies. Press cookie to gently flatten. Bake until golden brown. Allow to cool before removing from the paper.

THUMBPRINT COOKIES

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon fine salt

3/4 cup unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened

2/3 cup sugar, plus more for rolling

1 large egg

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/3 cup raspberry, cherry or strawberry jam

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, whip the butter and the sugar until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla until just combined. Slowly beat in the dry ingredients in 2 additions, mixing just until incorporated. Scoop the dough into 1-inch balls and roll in sugar. Place about 2 inches apart on a baking sheet. Press a thumbprint into the center of each ball, about 1/2-inch deep. Fill each indentation with about 3/4 teaspoon jam. Bake until the edges are golden, about 15 minutes. Cool cookies on the baking sheets.

SUGAR COOKIES

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sour cream

4 cups flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs, sour cream, and vanilla extract. Stir in dry ingredients until well incorporated. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill several hours. On a floured surface, roll out 1/4 inch thick and cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Place on ungreased baking pans and bake about 15 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove from pan and place on a wire rack to cool. Leave plain or decorate with icing.

SNOWBALLS

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla until fully. Beat in flour and salt. Add nuts and mix well. Chill for 1 hour. Shape into 1-inch balls and bake for 8-10 minutes. Do not brown. Cool completely. Roll in powdered sugar.