Scottish shortbread

So glad I have got this from Janis.  This is her family recipe and it is so simple and yet so amazingly good!  Thanks so much for sharing your family recipe which has now become a must bake during Christmas holiday.

Ingredients

Quantity	Unit	Item
1	lb	butter (has to be salted)
1	cup	sugar
2	teaspoon	vanilla extract
5	cup	sifted all purpose flour

Directions

Cream butter until almost white. Add sugar a little at a time. Add vanilla beating well. Make it fluffyish with no lumps.

Add flour a little at a time mixing thoroughly with your hands making a rollable cookie dough.

Pre-heat oven to 325F.

Dust table with flour, roll and cut with cookie cutter – thickness is your choice but I do mine aprox. 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick.

Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 25 minutes. Should stay mostly white, maybe a little light brownish at the edges.

Related Link

• Making of Scottish Shortbread Album

Detail Step-by-step Pictures

All ingredients – so simple yet so good!

*KEY* to  success is this stage: must cream sugar & butter to this fluffy, light white colour. No more trace of sugar.

Dump all the flour in at once, and use spatula and mix by hand. Trust me, a lot less mess doing this way.

Dough should feel a bit dry but it is perfectly fine.

Form into a dough ball – the mixing bowl is so neat and clean! No waste!!

Lightly flour the marble surface and start with flatten the dough.

Roll out and cut with your favour cookie cutter

place on ungreased baking sheet – this cookie does not spread a lot, but stil should leave some room between each cookies

Baked & cooling the on rack