Butter Shortbread Dough
- Total Time
- 10 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
Yield:1 batch of dough (enough for 2 cookie recipes)
- 2cups/460 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2teaspoons kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)
- 2cups/415 grams granulated sugar
- 2large egg yolks
- 5cups/654 grams all-purpose flour (see Tip)
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (22 servings)
336 calories; 18 grams fat; 11 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 5 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 42 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram dietary fiber; 19 grams sugars; 3 grams protein; 165 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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- Step 1
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, salt and sugar. Beat on low speed until incorporated and smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, about 3 minutes. (Do not beat until fluffy, you don’t need to incorporate air into the dough.) Add the yolks and mix until just combined. Turn the mixer off and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Step 2
Add the flour to the bowl all at once and scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl. Turn the mixer speed to low and beat until flour is fully incorporated, scraping the bowl again if needed, about 30 seconds. The dough will be in large crumbles. Wrap and refrigerate for later use, or divide the crumbles in half and proceed with Sparkling Shortbread Cookies, Strawberry Jam Bars With Cardamom, Spiced Chocolate Marble Shortbread, Cheddar Chive Crisps, Salted Caramel and Peanut Butter Shortbread or Peppermint Patty Shortbreads.
Tips
- If you want to make all 6 cookies at once, you will need 3 batches of dough. Divide the dough into 6 portions. Wrap each portion tightly and refrigerate. When ready to use, allow the dough to come to room temperature for 5 minutes. Crumble the dough in large clumps into a bowl, then add the mix-ins (if any) and proceed with the steps that follow.
- If using volume measurements, using a spoon, fluff and scoop the flour into a measuring cup, then scrape with a straight edge to level the surface. This will help prevent adding too much flour which can yield overly crumbly dough.
Private Notes
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Cooking Notes
deliabritt
Seems like the infamous December Gourmet 1993 cookie dough that revolutionized Christmas cookie making for me at least. I do not know if Epicurious moved that recipe to the archives, but if you can find it, it's a gem! In that issue there were at least 8 variations from one dough. I have made it every year since, using the finest butter I can find: this year it is Plugra.
Coriander
Just use a wooden spoon. As long as the butter is room temp, it’s easy. I don’t have a mixer and a wooden spoon works fine.
Linda Watson (Cook for Good)
@dd I use Miyoko’s Cultured Vegan Butter for baking. It’s delicious and preforms well, a true breakthrough in vegan butter. You can get it salted or unsalted too, which is wonderful for the many baking recipes that call for unsalted butter.
Julia Child's Ghost
My go-to short bread forever is: is 2 c. flour and 1 c. butter with 3/4 t. salt and 2/3 c. sugar in a food processor until pulsed into fine meal. Pour it into an 8 x 8 pan, press it, prick it with forks, and bake for 50 minutes at 350. slice when warm into slender bars - it makes 15 to 18 short breads and is fast and simple. If you want the butter/sugar/flour fix, this is your recipe. Dip in coffee, serve with lemon curd, dip in European thick hot chocolate. Yum.
Lauren
What happens if you use 2 eggs instead of just the yolks? For those who don't have a lot of use for 2 egg whites, and who hate waste...
janet
I'm not an experienced shortbread baker, but I suspect that people are finding the dough dry because the flour to butter ratio is off. (Refrigeration probably exacerbates the problem.) Melissa Clark's recipe Shortbread 10 Ways uses a 1 to 1 ratio, as one commenter here suggests. I'm glad I read ALL the comments. I'll go with Melissa's recipe and use a European butter.
Alix
Curious to know if I can use this shortbread recipe to make Sue Li's Orange, Pistachio, and Chocolate Shortbread recipe--which users noted was very dry and difficult to work with.
betsy
Will this work with GF flour? Different amount?
Haley
What would be the best vegan substitute for the egg yolks in this dough?
dd
Has anyone really played around with soy butters like Earth Balance for those who are lactose intolerant? (or vegans) I've subbed it in in many recipes, but never feel they are great. Butter is best for taste, but can we come close?
CJ
My guess is that the butter flavor is the key. Every shortbread cookie I've ever made has that dominant butter flavor. Use the best you can afford. European style butters have more "butter fat" content than the less expensive unsalted butters found in the grocery store brand. That means that the flavor is higher in the euro butters--like Kerry Gold, Plugra, any French butter, etc. The brand makes a difference, but only if you can afford it and find it.
Eastbayresident
Waste of time and ingredients. Impossible to form into a log, impossible to slice once chilled. Tried to salvage the dry, crumbled dough by pressing it into a square pan, sprinkled with the sugar, baked 30 min or so and cut into squares. Just awful. Tossed it all.
Frustrated_shortbread_aficianado
Yikes! I don't know what I'm doing incorrectly, but this recipe is an unmitigated mess--crumbles of shaggy dry dough that absolutely refuse to get it together. So far, I've wasted 2 cups of butter and all the accompanying ingredients. Too expensive to keep experimenting!!
zoz
A note about the dry nature of the dough: I used 2 Medium (rather than large) egg yolks in my first batch and had to add ~1/4 c. water to make the dough workable (e.g., roll into logs). For the second batch, I increased the medium egg yolks to 3 and the consistency was much improved. Everything else was exactly as found in the recipe (I used Plugra butter).
Monica Welch
To L, who doesn’t want to waste the egg whites and use a whole egg instead….it’s easy to use 2 yolks and just freeze the whites. They can go in a ziplock bag in the freezer and get them out when you want to use. They defrost quickly in a tub of warm water.
Ellie Schoenbaum
I use sea salt (Maldon flakes). Folks who knew and loved this cookie, didn't what was different and so good. i suspect it made these spectacular cookies a bit better.
Julie
This is the second year I have made this dough, it is delicious and easy to handle. I didn't change a thing. You can roll this dough in anything... peppermint chips, toffee chips, homemade cinnamon chips. Bakes beautifully. Easy and stores well, a keeper!
Deb Robison
Use a wooden spoon they said! Use Melissa Clark's recipe they said! Julia Child's ghost weighed in and still, I didn't listen. I lessened the sugar slightly, but kept everything else the same. I could tell as I tried to shape the logs that things weren't going well. Then when I took them out after 40 minutes of chilling, each log shattered as I sliced it (I was attempting the Sparkling Shortbread cookies). So I think I have a dough handling problem & wish instructions had more about that.
Heather
I was diagnosed with Celiac disease earlier this year so was experimenting with making this shortbread gluten free, as these cookies were a mainstay of my holiday baking last year! I was able to substitute 1:1 King Arthur GF measure for measure flour for the regular flour in the recipe and so far have made the strawberry jam bars and salted caramel cookies and they turned out perfectly. Other GF shortbread recipes I’ve found just weren’t the same as this and I was pleased with the substitution!
Diana D
Love shortbread. Yet, with this recipe the reward wasn't worth the trouble. Took a long time to make.
Cocktails and Aloha
I made a double batch and made the Regular, Chive and Cheddar, Chocolate Orange and Cardamon Raspberry. The Chive Cheddar was the favorite. I had no problems with the dough. But I've ended up with my cookies a little too brown on thr bottom when cooking the full time. Not sure if my oven is getting too hot or I need to cut back by 5 mins.
NewHavener
I agree with "Eastbay resident." The dough was way too crumbly. I got it to work for the strawberry jam bars, which were delicious, but making the spiced marble shortbread was a nightmare. It was nearly impossible to shape the two pieces, to fold them, and then to slice them. The rectangles broke in half when they baked.
Danielle
So, I read all the notes and I chose to go with this recipe anyway to give it a chance. There is far, far too much flour in it. I had to add water to help the dough come together and it was perfectly pliable. But the finished cookies, which I made matcha and orange/vanilla bean flavor respectively, are hard and stodgy. I made my chocolate chunk shortbread cookies using a different dough and those are fantastic. I would stick with an even-ish ratio of flour to butter in the future.
Sharon
These were not good. The flavor was ok but the consistency was wrong for shortbread. They were tough and chewy. I was surprised by the first step: beating only until smooth not fluffy. Very disappointing.
Anne
I read all the reviews and decided (maybe foolishly?) to try anyway. I measured ingredients by weight and the shortbread was very easy to work with and came together perfectly. However, I did halve the sugar and it’s still quite sweet so using the original amount would probably be overkill especially for the cheddar chive shortbread, which even with half the sugar is still maybe a bit too sweet for.
Rob M
What did I do wrong (with exactly following instructions)? Tried making this twice; first time had way too much flour to work in and second time it was a bit better but still unable to form a log. It seemed dry and floury each time, and tried another egg yolk...seemed like I would need a dozen more.
andrei
There is far far too much sugar in this shortbread. I tasted it and thought I had read the recipe incorrectly. Then I compared it to other recipes I found on line. It has fully double the amount of sugar as others. It does not need it. If you made the chocolate version, a bit of extra sugar would balance the bitterness of the cocoa. For pure shortbread, cut the sugar in half.
devona
After experimenting with 4 (yep, FOUR) different shortbread recipes in my attempt to duplicate my now-deceased mother-in-law’s shortbread, this one was my hands-down favorite. Made it exactly as directed, as I did with other three tried, and I had no difficulty with the dough. I’d like to make it in a shortbread mold, not in cookie form, though. Does anyone out there have any thoughts/suggestions on how to do this? Should I use dough without refrigerating it, maybe?
Sue
This shortbread was a crumbly, messy disaster. I feel like a failure!!
Lee
If so many of us are finding this recipe to be problematic, it's probably a sign to look for a different, correct shortbread recipe. This dough is too dry and the the ratios are wrong.
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