Jean made this very easy but delicious Whipped Shortbread Cookies. It is always a challenge using a different oven from your home. The Gilmore Park Church has a gas oven which takes a long time to heat up. Usually, we will turn the thermometer up by 50F to achieve the same result as the electric oven.
However, this Whipped Shortbread Cookie is very delicate. You really have to watch the cookies as they burn easily. We burnt the batch we made in the kitchen due to the unfamiliarity with the oven.
This batch of Whipped Shortbread Cookies were made by Jean the day before. They are so buttery and they just melt in your mouth. Great for holiday cookies exchange.
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, at room temperature, softened
- 1/2 cup icing sugar
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- dash of salt
- 1 teaspoon of almond extract
Click on the link below for the instructions.
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 325F.
 Place the soft butter in a mixing bowl. Sift the dry ingredients over the soft butter. |
 Whip together the mixture using an electric beater or standing mixer until the mixture resembles whipped cream. This takes about 10 minutes. |
 Place the whipped batter into a piping bag (or use a ziplock bag as piping bag by snipping off a small corner of the bag). Pipe a small dollop of the size of a toonie onto an ungreased pan. |
 For Christmas cookies, add a piece of red or green cherry cut in quarters on the top of the cookies. Bake in the preheated oven for 17 to 20 minutes. |
Those look really yummy!
My mom makes the best shortbread ever. The recipe just has the butter, icing sugar, flour and corn starch in it.
Shortbread is indeed delicate. But delicious, and worth the work!
Here are some hints for baking delicate items:
* Preheat the oven well ahead of time.
* Use light colored or shiny baking pans, as dark colored pans will cause more browning. (Dark absorbs heat, light reflects heat)
* If your oven tends to have “hot spots” or uneven heating, use a double pan for baking. This also works for cakes, if you are using a thin or disposable cake pan.
* Check the temperature of the oven using a separate oven thermometer.
Happy baking!
Those look so yummy
i’ll have to try making them.
Help! I followed the directions posted and mine all melted too. Not just a little bit—they where pretty and piped when I popped them in the oven and within a few minutes they melted into flat as a crepe puddles and crisped into greasy wafers 🙁
What did I do wrong? Is 325 the correct temp? Should my butter be totally room temp? Is “soft” butter a different formula than regular room temp butter?
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Hi Amanda, I’m quite puzzle by your problem. So, I have to seek advice from an expertise. I managed to get this response from Karen Dar Woon, a personal chef.
“My first thought is that the reader used “soft margarine” from a tub, rather than room temperature butter.
Water content in margarine varies wildly; I seem to recall seeing one label which read over 50%!
There is also a butter product available which remains soft at refrigerator temperature. It contains much more water than regular butter. Sorry, but I can’t remember the brand of the product.”
Did you use real butter or any of the above mentioned products?
Karen also pointed out that she doubted anyone would make a mistake on the ‘capful of almond extract’ to ‘cupful of almond extract. Anyway, I had changed the recipe to 1 teaspoon of almond extract since. In order to make it clear, I had also changed the softened butter to butter in room temperature, softened.
Hope this helps (Thank you, Karen)
I would refrigerate the dough for at least a half an hour before baking to make sure the cookies didn’t spread. Refrigeration should not affect the whipped texture.
You might want to use a hotter oven, since a slower oven just gives the dough more time to warm up and spread out. Do a test bake at 375 and see what happens.
My recipe is almost identical. To mine I also added 1/4 cup of cornstarch, and I use vanilla extract instead of almond extract. Other than that, the same – and the same whipping instructions. What truly amazes me about my recipe – and this one – is that the cookies are so soft and short. Who would have thought that beating them to death (or to the texture of whipped cream) would make them so melt-in-your mouth fab! I’ve not had the problem of the dough melting away. I live in a very dry climate and assume that heavy humidity could wildly affect the outcome.
Pingback: Chow Times » Chowtimes.com Turns Five
i just tried these. my butter was plain block butter softened to room temperature. i put them in the oven and they completely spread out. so disappointing!!
what is icing sugar??? is this something different than regular granulated sugar?
Hi Denise, icing sugar is also known as confectioners’ sugar or powdered sugar. It is much finer than granulated sugar.