Years ago, I bought a lovely, heavy duty shortbread pan — which I bring out once a year at the holidays to make this traditional Scottish shortbread recipe. I don’t know why I don’t make it more often. Laziness? Shortbread is a yummy treat at any time of year!
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Table of Contents
Scottish Shortbread Recipe
Shortbread Cookies
Equipment
- 1 Stand Mixer OR a hand mixer will do as well.
- 1 Shortbread Pan Or you can just use a regular cake pan. If you use one of the stoneware vs the metal shortbread pans, you may need to adjust your bake time a bit.
- 1 Wood Cutting Board A plastic one will also work, but I prefer wood for kneading the dough. A pizza peel would work as well — something large enough to cover the pan to help turn out the cookies.
- 1 Fork for poking the dough
- 1 Knife optional; only if you're going to cut up some cranberries to make the variation
- 1 Citrus Zester optional; only if you plan to add orange zest to make the cranberry-orange variation
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees
- Coat the pan with cooking spray — or you can use oil — but do so lightly and if you have a pan with detailed designs, use a pastry brush to spread the oil so it's not welling up inside the details.
- Use your mixer to cream the butter.
- Beat in the powdered sugar and vanilla.
- Work in the flour on low speed until combined and then take it out of your mixing bowl, put it on your (clean) counter or a board and knead the dough until it's smooth. I added an additional Tbsp of flour during the process to make the dough easier to handle and I think the final cookies turned out better for it. Also, if you want to mix in cranberries and orange zest — or anything else — you can knead it into your dough now.
- Press the dough into your pan.
- Poke the surface gently with a fork. Not all the way through! If you've purchased Scottish shorbread before, you may have noted that the back has some little indentations!
- Put it in the preheated oven and bake it for 30-35 minutes. It should be just lightly browned, but not dark brown.
- Remove from oven, let it cool a bit (10-15 min) and then turn it gently out of the pan onto a cutting board. I generally do this by sticking the board on the pan and then turning both over together so the shortbread doesn't just fall out of the pan.
- When the shortbread is removed from the pan, cut it while it's still warm.
- Eat and enjoy!
Notes
Variations
Orange-cranberry shortbread
I added 3 Tbsp of chopped dried cranberries and 2 tsp of orange zest (I actually did not have oranges on hand this last time and used mandarins and it turned out OK) into the dough kneading. Turned out well — if I’d wanted even more citrus, I’d have added more zest or used orange oil.Chocolate-dipped
I didn’t do this, but I think these would be good partially dipped in melted milk chocolate and then hardened.Nutrition
Variations
If you’d like to dress it up a bit, you can add a bit of orange oil and/or orange zest and a bit of chopped-up dried cranberry for cranberry-orange shortbread. Or melt some chocolate and dip part of the (cooled) cookies in chocolate!
Top Shortbread Pans
The pan I’ve long used is the square Nordic Ware English shortbread pan (read my review here) which makes nine squares. It’s a nice, heavy-duty metal pan and I’ve had good results with it. I also own their snowflake pan, which is also great but has a more seasonal design.
The recipe above is based on using such a pan. If you use a standard cake pan, or a ceramic/stoneware pan, you may need to adjust your bake times a bit. That shouldn’t be too difficult, however — just keep an eye on it and remove it from the oven when nicely browned.
- Cast-aluminum English shortbread pan with 9-by-9-inch patterned base
- Nonstick coating ensures effortless food removal and quick cleanup
- Rounded handles for steady transfer to cooling rack or counter
- Oven-safe hand-wash not for use with metal utensils scouring pads or abrasives
- Proudly made in the USA by Nordic Ware
- Cast Aluminum
- Made in USA
- Attractive Snowflake Design
- Scottish Thistle, Irish Celtic Knotwork, Tudor Rose, and a Welsh Dragon decorate the segments of this very special pan
- All shortbread pans come in an attractive gift box with a booklet of detailed instructions and six delicious recipes
- Bake the shortbread in the pan then turn out the decorative treat
- Made in USA
- Intricate knotwork inspired by the famous Book of Kells graces the segments of this shortbread pan; Four different designs, two of each pattern
- All shortbread pans come in an attractive gift box with a booklet of detailed instructions and six delicious recipes
- Bake the shortbread in the pan then turn out the decorative treat
- Made in USA
This is the author rating! Don’t want to give all of my recipes a 5. This is the way I generally make shortbread and it tastes great. My only difficulty is that I walk a fine line between getting them a bit too brown. I’d prefer a cookie that was a bit lighter like the shortbread you buy at the store. Still, a great cookie.