Salted Brown Sugar Shortbread Recipe

Every holiday season I hand out cookie boxes to friends and family. Each box contains five or six different cookies, and while it’s hard to narrow it down to my favorite few, I almost always include a shortbread cookie. Shortbreads are perfect for giving as gifts, as they generally keep for several days.

I like to dress up my shortbread cookies a little with dark brown sugar and a glittery sugar coated exterior. For five years, I have included this shortbread in my boxes. These are my ideal cookies: fudgy, with notes of brown sugar caramel, and just salty enough. They are always a hit, so much so that my loved ones have started asking me for the recipe. Read on to learn the techniques I use to make these cookies and for the full recipe.

The key techniques for making the best brown sugar shortbread

For shortbread that stays soft and fresh longer, use brown sugar.

Shortbread is usually made with just butter, granulated sugar, flour and salt. While classic shortbread cookies are delicious, their simplicity also means they’re perfect for riffing. In my recipe below, I swap out the granulated sugar for dark brown sugar, which not only adds a deep butterscotch flavor, but also results in a chewier cookie. Brown sugar contains molasses; The thick syrup is hygroscopic, meaning it attracts moisture to itself, so these cookies stay fresh and moist for days.

Add the baking soda. This recipe contains baking soda, which is not usually found in shortbread. Here, the baking soda reacts with the slightly acidic brown sugar, giving the cookies a subtle twist for a lighter, more tender shortbread than the average shortbread.

Roll the logs tightly. The best thing about the “slice and bake” method is that it doesn’t require any special equipment to shape the cookies. You don’t need a rolling pin or cookie scoop: simply form two logs with the dough, wrap them tightly in plastic wrap, then refrigerate.

However, sliced ​​and baked cookies can become crumbly if the logs are not formed correctly. So the key to preventing your cookies from falling apart is to make sure the dough is rolled as densely as possible before wrapping it tightly in plastic. For the roundest cookies possible, roll each log of dough back and forth to even out the shape when wrapped: the plastic will help hold everything in place.

(If you want Really uniform, perfectly round cookies, you can also roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment paper until it is half an inch thick, chill it until firm, then use a round cookie cutter to cut out as many cookies as possible. This is a method that many pastry chefs use to make shortbread cookies, but because it is slightly more complex, it is not the one I use in my recipe.)

Add some fizz and crunch with sugar. Once the dough has cooled, all that’s left to do is cut the logs into half-inch-thick rounds with a sharp knife, coat the cookies with sugar, and bake. Although it’s not essential, coating the cookies in granulated sugar before baking gives them a shiny, crisp exterior. I also like to sprinkle each cookie with a pinch of flaky salt for a little pop of flavor.

The beauty of these little cookies lies in their simplicity. They’re easy to make, require just a few ingredients, and have a rich butterscotch flavor. Although these cookies are a staple in my holiday cookie boxes, they are truly wonderful any time of year, whether as a gift or enjoying with a hot cup of coffee or tea.

December 2024