I thought I had made shortbread before, but apparently not. This looked like a fun recipe (and started with the letter K) so it made the “to bake” list.

This is honestly a super easy recipe in terms of ingredients. You beat the butter and sugar together and then add everything else. I got everything mixed together really well and it resembled pie crust, especially with how crumbling and loose it was. Having made pie crust in the past I knew it should stick together fairly well after being in the freezer/fridge. I did my best to roll this into a cylindrical shape (this probably took the most time!) and then popped it in the freezer.

This is where the ease ended for me as I COULD NOT get these to stay in the shape of the cylinder. It was still super crumbly; even after I added some key lime juice and water to help it hold together and let it sit in the freezer again. Not to be defeated, I gave up making the slice and bake cookies and poured the dough into a greased 8×8 pan to make shortbread squares. I pressed it down really well (like you would with a pie crust) and then popped it into the oven. Since I wasn’t making individual cookies I added about 10 minutes to the clock, but I started checking on it every 2-3 minutes to avoid it over baking or burning.

The icing was easy to throw together so I made it while the cookies were cooling. I waited until they were completely cool before cutting so I had nice clean cuts and then topped with the icing. I was disappointment that I couldn’t make these into the slice and bake cookies but they were absolutely delicious! Despite the snafu with the dough, I gave this recipe a 10 all around. I’m not quite sure what happened with my dough (humidity, possibly didn’t mix butter enough or butter was not fully room temp….) but I want to try these again to see if it works later. Even if it doesn’t you can still have delicious shortbread so be sure to give these a try!

Baking Ease	10
Time Spent	10
Taste	10
Visual	10

Recipe Used: Bakers Table