Would you believe me if I told you I made these cookies by accident? I had voted for these cookies for our next cooking club challenge at the new Food Network’s site a while ago and then totally forgot all about it. Then my dear friends invited me over to their new home and I knew I just had to bake them a house warming present.
I thought back to one of the first times me and my friend Jen hung out together. I had made her Anna Olson’s Shortbread Cookies finished with a giant hunk of Crispy Crunch wedge inside it. We had spent the day in downtown Victoria, exploring our new home. Since then we have both moved to the east coast and she and her husband dearest Mike finally found a place they love so I wanted to give them a taste of home in their new home. It was not until I checked out the Food Network’s site that I realize, OMG, I have already made these! Thank goodness I am in the habit of taking pictures.
You can find the complete recipe for Anna Olson’s Shortbread Cookies here. This recipe is very simple and does not require many ingredients: butter, icing sugar, cornstarch, four, salt and vanilla and if you want to add chocolate you can. As Anna recommended on her show Sugar, you can add pieces of Toblerone in order to switch it up. I found some mini Toblerone bars which worked perfectly for these beautiful cookies.
I used my mixer named Rebel but I originally made these cookies by hand, it is easy to do. Cream the butter, add the sifted icing sugar, sift in the rest of the dry ingredients and then add vanilla.
The recipe says to spoon large teaspoonfuls of dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and leave two inches apart and bake at 350F for 18-20 minutes. Now, teaspoons are quite small and 18 minutes is a long time for a cookie. I listened to my instincts and used a medium-sized ice cream scoop which is more like 1/4 of a cup. I do not like over-baked cookies so I would prefer to risk them being under-baked than being over-baked. I pushed in a wedge of Toblerone into each cookie and put it in the pre-heated oven.
You want to take them out when the bottoms are just browning and I caught this batch in time. Sadly the second batch was a disaster. Um, well, I really need to get a very loud buzzing timer since it seems the quiet and polite beeping of my microwave just is not loud enough for me to hear.
I love that we made these cookies for the cooking challenge this month. It took me back to happy memories and helped me make new ones for me and my friends during the holidays.
Shortbread is wonderful but you’re right — you have to watch it like a hawk in the oven. One second it’s perfect and the next — too late, overbaked, brown and dry and crusty. I love red and green maraschino cherries on top of shortbread.
Next time I won’t be leaving the kitchen at all! This doesn’t make that many cookies either so to lose a whole batch was disheartening but it’s all my fault.
Yummy! I may have to try that with the cherries instead. I love that too and it’s so festive.
Hi Suzie,
Oh if my oven can just behave now and if i could bake a cookie as pretty as these – they are gorgeous!
Your photography is awesome !
happy christmas
michele
Beautiful job! Anna’s recipes are always great!
Mmm – I can taste them already!
& they won’t be hard to ‘convert’ to GF – I’d prob use my rice/potato starch, n tapioca flour basic mix, w/1/4 C coconut flour, & half C oil, half butter . . . .
BBBRrrr – it’s cold here! Made myself some fingerless gloves & legwarmers that are my FRIENDS, lol!
Temptingly delicious! We’ve pretty much linked accident to a negative connotation that it always comes a surprise when it results into something wonderful – like these cookies.