#31: Bake a New Cookie Part 2

I took #31 really, really seriously, and instead of just making one new cookie, I made three over the course of a few weeks. Over-achiever! 

Part 1: Gingerbread Butterscotch Cookies 

Part 2: Shortbread Bites

All the goodness of shortbread, in an itty bitty cube that won’t make you feel like a gluttonous manatee. The festive non-pareils make them look really whimsical and fun also, like shortbread for little pixies or something.

Really, you could use any good shortbread recipe and just cut it into teeny squares. This one worked pretty well, from over at delish.com 

You need: 

1 1/4 cup flour 

3 tbsp white sugar 

1/2 cup room temp. butter

1 tbsp colourful non-pareils (the little round speck sprinkles) 

1 tbsp milk 

1 tsp vanilla 

Heat oven to 325 F 

I don't have a fancy food processor like they suggest in the original recipe, so this is what I did. Stir the flour and sugar together until it looks all mixed up. Cut in the butter, using two butter knives and criss-crossing through the dough in the bowl. I found the dough from the original recipe to be too dry to form into a ball, so I also added a bit of milk and vanilla - vanilla just makes things good. When you get sick of how annoying and tedious using the knives is, just mush it all together with your hands. Whatever, it's shortbread. Mush in those non-pareils too while you're at it. 

When thoroughly mushed, get out some waxed paper, and turn out the dough. Using your hands, flatten the dough until it is roughly rectangular, to about 1/2 an inch thick. The original recipe says to freeze the dough for 15 minutes at this step, but...ain't nobody got time for that, so I just continued on to the next step - which was to cut the dough into 1/2 inch cubes. Some of them might not be perfect cubes, but that's ok - just eat those ones as 'testers.' 

Place the cubes on a baking tray - you can fit a lot on there, as this kind of shortbread doesn't really expand when cooked. Bake for about 20 minutes. Shortbread isn't great warm, in my opinion, so let them cool before eating.

Once they were cooled, and I had 'tested' a couple handfuls, I froze them in a plastic container so they'll keep longer.