Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Shortbread

A stack of favourite holiday cookie recipes sit on the counter waiting to come to life! This year I have a few new recipes for the all-time favourite, shortbread.

Most shortbread recipes are simple and require minimal ingredients. Butter is definitely the main ingredient but when it comes to the type of sugar and flavouring used the recipes produce cookies unique in taste and texture.

The icing sugar used in the Whipped Shortbread recipe posted some time ago gives a light somewhat fluffy texture that just melts in your mouth.  On the other hand, brown sugar used for these Chocolate Chip Shortbread cookies develops into a more crisp texture with a hint of caramel flavour. Both are  shortbread however differ in texture and taste but both equally delicious!

This batch won’t last for the holidays, in fact they will only last a couple of days in the cookie jar before they disappear!

Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Shortbread
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla 2 cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup mini chocolate chips

1. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla in a bowl until light and fluffy.
2. Sift the flour then gradually beat in until well mixed.
3. Mix in chocolate chips and with hands gather dough into a ball.
4. Roll out dough into about ¼ inch thickness and cut with cookie cutter.
5. Gather all the scraps and pile the pieces on top of each other then re-roll, continue until all dough is used up.
6. Place on ungreased or parchment lined cookie sheets and bake in a preheated 350 degree F. 0ven for 13 to 15 minutes until pale brown.
7. Cool on sheets for a few minutes then transfer to racks.

Notes, Tips and Suggestions

• Dough can also be rolled into 1 inch balls, placed on baking sheet and pressed down with a fork like peanut butter cookies.  Baking time will increase by 5 to 7 minutes if shaped this way.
• Even though flour is the only dry ingredient sifting removes any lumps and aerates it making it easier to blend in.
• I used two 3/16th's diameter wooden dowels to help roll the dough into a uniform thickness. My dowels are part of a pasta drying rack.  Home Depot carries different size dowels.  Just place dowels alongside the dough and roll with a rolling pin.
• Make sure the scraps are placed on top of each other to re-roll, this will ensure the texture remains tender.   Whatever you do don't squish the dough together before re-rolling.
• If you don’t have a ring cookie cutter, use a round cookie cutter and cut out the center with a wide decorating tip.
• Once the cookies are removed from the oven and still hot re-cutting the centers makes a neater appearance.  Just make sure it’s done as soon as the cookies are removed from the oven or they will crack.
• Rolling the cookies in fruit sugar gives them a little sparkle, totally optional though.
• Cookies freeze very well.