Old-fashioned shortbread cookies are crisp, crumbly and buttery. Here, they also become nutty with an extra depth of flavor by the addition of finely chopped walnuts.
These walnut shortbread cookies are so versatile. With a mug of hot cocoa they become a wonderful holiday treat. As a sweet snack with your morning coffee, they melt in your mouth. A glass of icy cold milk and a plate of walnut shortbread cookies is a perfect treat after a long work or school day. And what could be better on a lazy summer afternoon than a frosty glass of lemonade and a shortbread cookie or two?
Cook Time
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup walnuts, finely chopped
Method
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two baking sheets lined with parchment paper and set aside.
- Cream the butter and sugar until it’s light and fluffy.
- Add in vanilla and beat until it is well incorporated.
- Whisk the flour and salt together in a small bowl.
- Add the flour mixture and the chopped nuts to the butter mixture and mix just until until the dough is crumbly.
- Finishing mixing the dough with a rubber scrapper using a kneading motion to form the ingredients into a cohesive dough.
- Using a 2 TBS cookie scoop, scoop some dough, level it and drop onto the parchment-lined baking sheets, about 3 inches apart.
- Roll the drops of dough between your palms to form balls and place them back on the baking sheet. Using the bottom of a drinking glass, or a cookie press, flatten the balls. If the dough sticks, dip the bottom of the glass into a bit of flour between every one or two cookies. Working fast and gently will also help to keep the dough from sticking. Make three sets of holes on the tops of the cookies with the tines of a fork.
- Bake for approximately 14 minutes or until the edges are just starting to show color. If you are baking two trays at once and using a conventional oven, rotate the pans at 7 minutes to insure even baking between the two trays.
- Allow the cookies to rest on baking pans for a few minutes until firm. Place them on a cooling rack to finish cooling and then store in an air-tight container.
Tips
Chop the nuts by hand to maintain a light and crumbly texture in the cookie. When you use a food processor or chopper to chop nuts with a high oil content, the mechanical movement releases too much oil from the nuts, making them greasy. This in turn will give the cookies a heavy and dense texture. Chopping them by hand only takes a few minutes and will actually consume less time that it would to get out the food processor, chop, clean it and put it away again.
Never freeze dough that has a high content of nuts. The nuts will absorb moisture and will lead to a heavy moister cookie that will not be quite as good. The dough is so fast to make that if you keep the chopped nuts in an air-tight container you can have a fresh batch of dough prepared in minutes.
Shortbread cookies taste better as they age. Always plan to consume them at least a day or two after they are made.
Chopping the Nuts
Chop the nuts by hand to maintain a light and crumbly texture in the cookie. When you use a food processor or chopper to chop nuts with a high oil content, the mechanical movement releases too much oil from the nuts, making them greasy. This in turn will give the cookies a heavy and dense texture. Chopping them by hand only takes a few minutes and will actually consume less time that it would to get out the food processor, chop, clean it and put it away again.
