How To Make Shortbread Cookies

Some people bake; others are bakers in the deepest part of their soul. The latter is our dear friend and kindred spirit Sarah. We met her through our blogs back in 2011 (back when having a blog about food was fairly novel). The first time we met in person, she warmly invited us into her Minnesota kitchen for cold brew coffee and plate of goodies. She’s one of those bakers where everything she touches is perfection.

About the book

Sarah’s written a book called The Vanilla Bean Baking Book, which is a serious anthology of baking. (I told her it was like her PhD thesis.) Every recipe has Sarah’s stamp of precision and creativity. Last year she served us a peach pie she was testing that can only be described as gorgeous. Of course we couldn’t wait to see Sarah’s book, and it was everything we imagined.

How to make shortbread cookies

As we paged through The Vanilla Bean Baking Book, we found some shortbread cookies that were very A Couple Cooks, with a minimal ingredient list and small portion size. With only a handful of ingredients, they’re everything a shortbread cookie should be: crisp and sweet-salty, and the chocolate drizzle adds a fun visual element. How to make shortbread cookies? It truly couldn’t be simpler. Mix together flour, sugar, salt, and seeds from a vanilla bean, then gradually add butter until it comes into a dough. Chill the dough for 30 minutes, then roll it out into a thin layer and cut into cookies. The bake time is just 15 minutes, so in no time you’ll be enjoying your shortbread cookies.

How to make chocolate drizzle for cookies

It might look easy to make a chocolate drizzle for cookies: just melt chocolate and drizzle it on with a spoon! However, we’ve found making a good chocolate drizzle for cookies is not that simple. Here are a few pointers from this recipe! For this chocolate drizzle, the chocolate is melted over a double boiler (one pan set over another pan with boiling water) to make sure it heats evenly. After half of the chocolate is melted, the other half is added and stirred in. This is called tempering the chocolate, and it makes the chocolate have a lovely sheen to it when it dries. For drizzling the chocolate onto the cookies, using a spoon would result in too thick of a chocolate drizzle. So for this recipe, we’ve used a plastic bag with a small hole cut into the tip. This allows you to have more control over the chocolate drizzle when drizzling over the cookies. Make sure to start with a very small hole so that the chocolate drizzle doesn’t come out too fast!

Order the book

If you’re a baker or know one, this book absolutely deserves a spot on your shelf. Here’s The Vanilla Bean Baking Book Congratulations, Sarah! Check out her creations on Instagram.

Did you make this recipe?

We’d love to hear how it turned out. Leave a comment below or share a picture on Instagram and mention @acouplecooks.

Aside from how to make shortbread cookies, here the other Christmas cookie recipes you need to master!

Soft Gingerbread CookiesPeppermint MeringuesChai Spiced Snowball CookiesChewy Pumpkin Oatmeal CookiesGinger Cookie Ice Cream SandwichesThe Best Soft Ginger Molasses CookiesVegan Chocolate Chip Cookies Cherry Quinoa Chocolate BarkNarwhal Gingerbread Cutout CookiesHealthy Peanut Butter Buckeye BallsGingersnap Sandwich CookiesCranberry Pistachio Chocolate ClustersEasy Peppermint Bark