Shortbread Trees

While the fudge was cooling from my baking marathon yesterday, and after I took short break to chat with my best friend on the phone, I got cracking on another holiday favorite of mine.  It always took a little convincing to get my mom to help me make these when I was younger, because well, they're a bit of work.  But the sweet reward is the buttery crunch of these delicious cookies.  In true old-school recipe style, this is all done by hand...completely low-tech.  But, oh are they worth it!  The recipe is from my grandmother's long-time friend: Eleanor.  So, Eleanor, thank you for sharing this delightful recipe with our family.

We had lots of different cookie cutters to work with--candy canes, Santa, Rudolph, bells, and wreaths, but my favorite was always the tree.  I think mostly because they were my favorite to decorate.  There's something about dashing green sugar crystals and multicolored nonpareils on to cookie dough that makes these little trees come to life.  Okay, let's get started.

Shortbread Trees
Ingredients:
4 sticks butter, cold and cut into little cubes
1 cup confectioners' (powdered) sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 1/2 cups flour, sifted
decorating sugars and nonpareils

Equipment:
large mixing bowl
smaller mixing bowl for flour
sifter
pastry blender
rolling pin
cookie cutters
baking sheets
silicon baking liner or parchment paper
cooling rack

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  In a large mixing bowl, sift confectioner's sugar.  Using a fork, pastry blender or clean hands, mix together butter, confectioners' sugar and vanilla until combined.  Add flour in batches and blender until mixture is not sticky. 

It will be crumbly, but don't fret.  I usually make about four or five smaller balls of the dough and place them in the bowl I used for the sifted flour. Gently knead one of the dough balls on a floured surface or pastry cloth.  Once the dough has come together, i like to form a round disc before I take the rolling pin to it.  I sprinkle a little flour on the top and bottom of the disc and rub some on my rolling pin to make things roll out smoother.  Chances are the some of the dough may stick to the pin, so make sure to keep flouring the pin as needed.  Turn the dough every few rolls until the dough is about 1/4" to 1/8" think.  I like them on the thicker side, but the thinner ones have a little more snap when you bite into them.  try out both and see what works for you.

Using your cookie cutter(s), cut out your cookies.  Some will easily come off the floured surface and others might need a little encouragement so they don't break.  I use a little cake frosting spatula or a dinner knife to help those stubborn ones along.  Don't panic if a little piece breaks off in the cutter or decides to stay behind.  You can gently press it back in place on the cookie sheet.  It will bake together just fine.  Remember: one pound of butter...all is well with the world.   Since these don't rise or spread, you can put them fairly close together on the sheet.  As you can tell, my tree cutter is a little larger than your average cutter.  I bought it at a fancy cooking store last year during a moment of weakness and am so glad I did!  it makes beautiful cookies.  But I digress...your cutters may yield smaller cookies, which means more cookies on one sheet. 

Sprinkle your decorating sugars on to your hearts' delight.  Here's what mine looked like before a trip in the oven.

Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes.  This recipe called for 10-12 minutes, but it took a little longer in my oven.  Basically, you want just the slightest hint of golden brown on the edges like this:

So keep an eye on them.  Start checking them at about 10 minutes and go from there.  After about three minutes, gently move your cookies to a cooling rack...if you can manage to wait long enough before biting into one.  I apparently could not.  These are the best shortbread cookies I've ever had.  They are not sweet; more buttery and delicate than anything.  They just make your mouth happy.   Between batches, I scraped the excess sugars into the trash so that they wouldn't start making a total mess of my cookies. 

My batch yielded three dozen lovely trees.  If you use smaller cutters than I did, you can get about five dozen from one batch.  Make sure to reuse the scraps from each previously cut-up batch as you introduce each new ball of dough.  There's no sense in wasting perfectly good cookie dough!  Again, the new ball might be a bit crumbly when you first start kneading it, but the heat from your hands and the smoothness of the scraps will help the dough along.  The dough is practically all butter, so it requires you to be a bit more patient with it than you would a sugar cookie recipe.  Just remember to use a flour if anything starts sticking and to turn the dough so it doesn't stick to your floured surface.

By the way, Santa LOVES these with a glass of spiked egg nog...and to all a good night.