Three Ingredient Short Bread Cookies

A delicious snack or dessert for anytime, which is super easy to whip up in about 30 minutes, are these three ingredient shortbread cookies. Not only is this recipe super easy, but it doesn’t use a lot of fancy ingredients which might be hard to find. Excluding the butter that’s used to make them, they are relatively inexpensive. They’re very easy to dress up, shape, and turn into something that’s a lot more than just a simple shortbread cookie.

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup unsalted butter softened
• 1/2 cup sugar or powdered sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 two degrees.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Slowly beat in the flour 1/4 cup at a time.
4. Form the cookies. They can be rolled into tiny balls and then pressed onto an ungreased baking sheet with a fork, or the dough can be pressed into an ungreased baking sheet and one large continuous clump.
5. Prick the dough with a fork to make it easy to cook the cookies throughout and to keep the butter from bubbling.
6. Bake until lightly browned which should take 30 to 35 minutes.
7. If you pressed the dough into the baking sheet as one large continuous clump, cut into squares while still warm.
8. Remove the cookies from the cookie sheet and cool them on a wire rack.
9. Once cool they can be consumed or decorated.

Tips:

• Flour should be sifted before being placed within the batter.
• Shortbread cookies are forked to prevent the butter from bubbling, and it also is a traditional design.
• If your shortbread cookies are too soft, place them in an airtight container in the refrigerator.  Shortbread cookies are made of a lot of butter and tend to be soft in a warm environment.
• To store shortbread cookies, arrange in a single layer adding a piece of parchment or wax paper between the layers. Always use an airtight container to store your shortbread cookies. They can be stored at room temperature for up to three weeks and up to three months in the refrigerator. shortbread cookies can store up to a year in the freezer.
• Ingredients you can add to enhance the flavor before cooking include vanilla extract, Maple syrup extract, 1/2 a teaspoon of salt, pecan pieces, walnut pieces, caramel pieces, white chocolate chips, and salted butter instead of unsalted butter.
• Shortbread cookies can be dusted lightly with powdered sugar to enhance the flavor and give them a simple decoration.  If you add a dash of cinnamon, ginger, or nutmeg it adds a bit of pop!
• Shortbread cookies can be dipped in melted chocolate. After the melted chocolate has cooled and hardened, place a paper doily on top, and sprinkle a light dusting of powdered sugar on top of this. This will create a very fancy design on top of your tasty shortbread cookies.
• Shortbread cookies can be rolled out just like sugar cookies and then cut with various shapes with a cookie cutter. This is a fun project on the weekend with the kids.
• Each cookie in this recipe has 183 calories, 12 grams of fat, 18 grams of carbohydrates, and 2 grams of protein.