Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies Recipe | Buns In My Oven (2024)

FAQs

How do you know when shortbread is done in the oven? ›

Bake the shortbread until it's a light golden brown across the top surface and a deeper golden brown around the edges, about 35 minutes. Remove the shortbread from the oven and turn it out of the pans and onto a clean work surface.

The most common mistakes when making shortbread are over-working the dough, and incorporating too much flour. The less you work the dough, the more crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth your shortbread cookies will be.

Is shortbread supposed to be soft when it comes out of the oven? Yes, upon cooling it will firm up. Shortbread should have a soft and tender texture but be slightly crisp when you bite into it.

With shortbread I always say it's better to “overbake” vs underbake. The beauty of shortbread is that it should crumble and melt in your mouth, so we don't want an underbaked center! When in doubt, leave the cookies in for an extra minute or two.

Greasy mess: Extra butter means more fat, making the dough greasy and difficult to handle. Spreading like crazy: Cookies lose their shape, spreading thin and flat instead of staying nice and round. Uneven baking: The excess fat can burn easily on the edges while leaving the center undercooked.

This unexpected addition will make buttery confections like shortbreads and shortcakes even more tender and flaky. “Biscuits should be crumbly, buttery and sweet,” reads a headnote for a cinnamon sugar-spiced shortbread recipe in the Ritz London Cookbook.

The dough is supposed to be crumbly. It's a sweet, short pastry that should practically melt in your mouth when you take a bite. It should be about the same consistency as pie dough when chilled, smooth enough to roll out, but not wet or sticky.

You can start with this recipe for Salted caramel shortbread bars; your baking powder will give the rich and buttery shortbread just enough lift to make it flaky and delicate. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13-inch by 9-inch baking dish with nonstick spray and line the bottom with parchment.

Step 3: The Secret to the Absolute Best Shortbread

After shaping the cookies, don't rush to the oven! Instead, chill the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or so (overnight is OK, too). A short stay in the fridge will firm up the cookies and solidify the butter. This will help keep them from spreading too much.

Piercing the shortbread with a fork is not only for decoration, but it's meant for more even baking. Poking holes in the shortbread allows the heat to penetrate the cookie, hence more even baking. Notice I'm using powdered sugar here. You'll see lots of shortbread recipes using granulated sugar.

Why is my shortbread raw in the middle? ›

It should never appear raw or slightly opaque in the middle. If it is under-baked in the middle, it will probably stick in the pan when you go to unmold it. Be sure to let the shortbread cool in the pan for 10 minutes before you flip the pan over to unmold it. This gives the delicate cookie a chance to firm up a bit.

One of shortbread's defining characteristics is its crumbly texture. The secret lies in the high butter content, which gives it that melt-in-your-mouth goodness. Shortbread is incredibly versatile!

If it's too warm, the butter and sugar cannot properly cream and the cookies will taste dense. Many shortbread recipes call for cold butter worked into the dry ingredients and that gives you a wonderfully flaky cookie but if not mixed properly, the results can be inconsistent.

The dough before cooking will be a creme-yellow colour, have a soft and smooth (slightly floury) kind of texture and as it bakes it will hold the colour. The longer it cooks the darker it will get, sort of caramelising the sugars contained in the dough.

For example, using an oven temperature that's too high or baking your shortbread for too long can make your cookies unpleasantly bitter.

Press the edges with your finger.

If you leave a noticeable indentation, then your cookies likely need a few minutes more in the oven. This is an especially good method to use with dark cookies, such as chocolate or gingerbread, where coloring isn't the best indication of doneness.

Firstly it's because the butter and sugar have been over creamed and too much air has been incorporated into the mixture. This extra air will expand during baking as it heats in the oven and will therefore make your biscuits spread.

If the biscuits are warm they will melt and spread in the oven, but if they're chilled then the outside of the biscuit will cook hard before the rest of the biscuit melts, and keep the shape.