These cookies have an excellent effort to reward ratio. They are impossibly wonderful and yet easy to make. They were so good on my first attempt that it was all I could do not to eat the entire pan. There is something magical about the texture.
Ingredients
Dough:
1.5 sticks (.75 c or 6 oz.) salted butter
.33 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional, or use another flavor like almond or lemon if you prefer)
2 cups all purpose flour
Filling:
.5 cup jam (I used raspberry, but any kind of spread would work)
In a large microwave safe bowl, melt butter. Whisk in sugar and vanilla until blended. Using a spatula, mix in the flour, kneading thoroughly to make sure there are no flour streaks.
Divide the dough into two equal pieces and shape them into logs about 1.5" in diameter (or a convenient size for your hand to hold for grating on a cheese grater).
Freeze the dough for 1-2 hours, or until firm enough to grate.
Heat oven to 325 degrees. Line a 9x9 (or 8x8) pan with parchment paper (not strictly necessary, but will make it really easy to remove the bars).
Take the dough logs out of the freezer and grate one onto a large dinner plate. Dump the pile of dough shreds into the prepared pan and gently spread them to cover the bottom evenly. Don't press them down. Bake for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, grate the second log of dough onto the plate and heat up the jam if necessary to make it spreadable. It may not need it, depending on what you are using for filling. Mine did, since it was from the fridge and pretty solid. I used a glass measuring cup in the microwave, heating for 15 second intervals to make sure it didn't get too hot.
After 15 minutes, take the bottom layer of shortbread out of the oven. Gently spread the jam evenly over the shortbread leaving a tiny border of a little less than .25" to keep the jam from sticking to the pan. You might need more if you want a thicker jam layer.
Dump the remaining dough shreds on top of the jam and gently spread them to cover the jam evenly and all the way to the edges. Be careful not to press too hard and smush the magic out of the fluffy shreds.
Put the shortbread back into the oven and bake for another 20-30 minutes or until the edges are golden and the center is set. Watch carefully after 20 minutes to make sure the bottom doesn't get too browned.
Cool them in the pan for 20 minutes to half an hour until they firm up. I cut them into small squares, so I get about 36 little cookies.
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