Baking Bouchon - Recipe 58: Shortbread

Simple is sometimes quite wonderful.  These cookies are really very simple but also very delicious.  I've never been a huge shortbread fan but I could eat these every day.

Look at that!  Only five ingredients and I don't even think you should count salt or vanilla - so that's three.  What IS in here is a lot of butter.  That's just the way it goes, don't dwell on it or stress about it... it's just butter people. 

The butter gets whipped together with granulated sugar - add in some vanilla bean paste, then flour and salt and voila.  Shortbread.  You don't even have to refrigerate the dough overnight (just a couple of hours to make rolling it out easier), making this the easiest and fastest cookie to make in this book so far.

Shortbread is one of the few cookies that don't have any levener or eggs in them.  That makes them denser and crumblier in texture than other cookies.  This is generally not my cup of tea but for some reason I make an exception to my chewy cookie rule for shortbread.  Maybe because it's such a classic that I can appreciate that it's not meant to be soft.

One thing I love about these cookies is that you sprinkle a little granulated sugar on top of them before baking them.  It gives it a great added layer of sweetness along with a little crunch and sparkle on the top.  It's probably my favorite part... aside from the butter.

People were pretty ridiculously pumped about these cookies which I found surprising.  They're a little bit boring - but like me, my eaters seem enjoy a classic and these guys disappeared in the blink of an eye.  One of my friends even gasped when I told her I was making them so I made sure to set some aside for her.  I gave them to her husband (who is one of my coworkers) to deliver and almost all of them made it to her which says a lot about his character.  I appreciate boys who don't steal ALL the cookies.


 I took an unnecessary amount of pictures of these cookies... dozens really, but luckily I'm only posting the few best ones here so you don't have to endlessly scroll through cookie after cookie.  I'm trying to be better about taking prettier pictures of the finished product for this blog but I can't quite get the hang of it.  My camera is just OK and I'm not motivated enough to buy a really expensive one.  Not to mention that the camera is constantly caked with food - which is a hazard of picture taking while baking.  That is yet another reason I can't see investing in a super nice camera.

I struggle with the fact that I really want this blog to be about the process of baking and not just a site for food pics (aka food porn), but on the other hand I know that 90% of the time when I read blogs I scan through the pictures before deciding if I want to read the whole post.

What do you all think?  More pictures?  Better quality pictures?  Or would you rather I just burn more stuff or drop it on the floor so you can have a good laugh?

Enjoy!
Julie