Brown Butter Rye Shortbread #Christmas recipe from Molly MacRae

 

Shortbread is such a good basic cookie. The recipe a friend gave me, when I spent a year in Scotland 50 years ago, is beautiful for its simplicity: 

    Take 8 ounces of all-purpose flour, 6 ounces of room temperature butter, and 2 ounces of white granulated sugar (an even pound of ingredients). 

    Mix with a wooden spoon until you have a dough you can gather into a ball that holds together. 

    Roll out the dough (to whatever thickness you want) and cut as cookies, or roll it into little balls and flatten slightly, or press it into a pie dish and decorate the rim by pressing the tines of a fork all the way around. 

    Bake at 325, or 350, or 375 (a very forgiving dough) until the edges and bottom are beginning to turn golden brown (timing depends on what you made your dough into. Expect 30 to 40 minutes at 350 for the dough in the pie dish). 

    If you made individual cookies, cool them on a rack. 

    If you went with the pie dish, cut the shortbread into petticoat tails as soon as it’s out of the oven. (Petticoat tails are wedges.)

But now, take that basic recipe and deepen the flavor by exchanging white flour, butter, and white sugar for rye flour, brown butter, and dark brown sugar (plus a smidge of baking powder and some milk). The result is a crisp, nutty, not overly sweet cookie with fruity overtones (the overtones might depend on the rye flour you use).

I’ve also made Lime Basil Shortbread and Oat Shortbread. Each is good in its own way, but among the three variations, Brown Butter Rye wins.

The next variation I’ll try? Taking Brown Butter Rye one step further—I’ll cut the dough into 2 1/2" rounds, cut the rounds in half, bake them, then make half-moon sandwiches with chocolate ganache for the filling.

 

Brown Butter Rye Shortbread

Adapted from King Arthur Baking

Yield depends on how big you make your cookies. I ended up with 34 small triangles and 7 Scottie dogs. 

flour, butter, sugar, baking powder, salt, and milk (milk not shown)

Ingredients

10 tablespoons unsalted butter (142g)

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons rye flour (225g)  (the recipe calls for King Arthur Organic Medium Rye Flour. I used what I have on hand – Hodgson Mill Rye Flour)

1/3 cup dark brown sugar (71g), packed

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon table salt

1/4 to 1/3 cup milk (57g to 76g)

 

Directions

Browning the butter: Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. After melting (or on its way to being melted), butter will sizzle pleasantly and might spatter. Continue cooking, swirling the pan regularly, until butter is a rich golden brown and brown bits are collecting on the bottom of the pan. The butter will stop sizzling and might have a layer of foam on the surface.

Remove from heat and pour butter into a heatproof bowl. Cool slightly at room temperature, then put in the refrigerator to chill until it thickens up but isn’t hard, about 30 minutes.

Making the Shortbread: Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease two baking sheets or line them with parchment paper.

Stir all the dry ingredients together. Break up any lumps you see in the brown sugar.

Take brown butter from the refrigerator. Stir briefly to bring it to an even temperature (it’ll be colder where it touches the bowl). I left mine in the refrigerator too long and it was hard around the edges. No problem—I stirred it up, zapped it for 10 seconds in the microwave, and stirred again until no hard lumps remained.

Stir brown butter into dry ingredients until everything is crumbly.

Drizzle in enough milk to bring dough together with a few stirs. I used 1/4 cup and it was perfect. You want to be able to gather the dough into a ball. If dry bits fall off around the edges and the dough isn’t holding together nicely, add a bit more milk.

At this point, you can flatten the ball into a disk, wrap it in plastic, and refrigerate for up to a couple of days. Take it out of the refrigerator 15 to 20 minutes before you plan to use it to let it warm up before rolling.

Roll dough 1/8-thick. Use cookie cutters, gathering scraps and re-rolling the dough as needed. Or, even simpler, roll out the dough, square it off, and cut squares, rectangles, or triangles with a knife or pizza wheel.

Transfer cut cookies to prepared baking sheets and bake for 7 to 12 minutes—until golden brown around the edges and on the bottom. Baking time will depend on how big your cookies are and on how close to 1/8-inch you got. My trays took 12 minutes. According to King Arthur, the cookies can go from perfectly golden to too dark within a couple of minutes, so be sure to keep an eye on them.

Cool cookies on racks. Store, well wrapped, at room temperature for several days. Freeze for longer storage. 

News! 

Come Shell or High Water, book 1 in the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries is out now, 

but keep an eye out for 

There’ll be Shell to Pay, book 2, coming in June! 

(Stay tuned for the cover reveal in the new year.) 

 

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on X or Instagram.