Shortbread: Just a Simple Melody

This shortbread literally melts in your mouth.  It's such a simple recipe with only three ingredients: flour, sugar, and butter.

British shortbread is more like a crisp biscuit and is the more familiar "shortbread" type sold in America.  This shortbread has far more butter than British shortbreads and is also textured more like a cake-y cookie.  If cooked longer, it is a bit more like the British shortbreads.  Either kind is simple and simply delicious!

To celebrate simplicity here's Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb's Orchestra singing "Just a Simple Melody."

SHORTBREAD

2 1/2 cups flour
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup butter

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Combine flour and sugar in a bowl then put into a food processor.  Add butter cut into 16 pieces.  Once food processor is covered and closed, press pulse button between 15-20 times or until the mixture is crumbly and pulling together.

Prepare a jelly roll pan by lining it with a silpat.  Dump the mixture onto the silpat.  Press together and knead three or four times until it forms a ball.  Shape the ball into a long rectangle on the silpat.  With rolling pin gently roll the rectangle to be about 1/4-inch thickness.

Using a large, straight-edged metal spatula, press the sides in to make them straight.  Press down on top of mixture against the spatula so that the sides of the rectangle are square to each other.

Using the same spatula, press down to cut into 1-inch squares.  Lift the pieces a few at a time and separate them then put them on the same silpat about half an inch apart.

With a fork, pierce the tops twice diagonally.

Bake for 18-24 minutes or until golden brown.  Cook for shorter time if you like very soft shortbread.

Allow the cookies to cool on the silpat lined pan for five minutes then remove cookies to a cooling rack.