Okay, I’ve never made shortbread type cookies before. I was given a recipe for “Finnish Almond Sticks” (Suomalaiset Manteli Puikot) from an old family friend which sounded dead simple. I swear I followed the instructions exactly, at least as far as I got.
Here they are:
Put 2.5C flour and .5 C sugar and 1 t. almond extract on board. Cut in 1 C. butter. Press together to form dough, chill while preparing almonds.
After that you basically form long rolls, brush them with egg, sprinkle with 1/2 C sugar and chopped blanched almonds, and bake. (I’m skipping over the details of that part, because I never got to them.)
Sounded dead simple. Well, I’ve cut the butter into the sugar/flour. Many, many, many times. I’ve got a perfectly blended mound of mix that looks almost indistinguishable from Bisquick. That is, perfectly dry, straight from the box Bisquick.
When I try to gather this into a ball it holds together for mere seconds before collapsing spontaneously back to a mound of Bisquick-y looking stuff.
What am I doing wrong?
I figured maybe there wasn’t enough butter in the combo, the butter being basically the only liquid. I cut off another few tablespoons of butter and cut that in. Cut, cut, cut. Result: slightly more yellowish Bisquicky mound.
At this point I have a few ideas:
Add some water. You do that with a rather similar mix while making pie crust to form a dough…but I really don’t want pie crust.
Add some corn oil. More liquid to stick it together…but will that ruin the end product?
Maybe the problem is due to temperature? The butter was at ‘room temperature’, but this is New England in the winter, and it’s roughly 65F in my kitchen which is on the cold side. If this is the problem, maybe a few seconds on ‘defrost’ in the microwave would help? But it’s so easy to overshoot and get melted butter, which would dissolve the sugar and that would likely screw up the final result, too.
Anybody have any idea what I should do? I’d ask the old Finnish woman I got it from, but she goes to bed around 8pm, and I was hoping to take these to a work ‘party’ tomorrow morning.
Now I’m wondering if old Finnish woman is senile and left out an ingredient or got an amount wrong…or maybe she just hates me and screwed it up deliberately.
According to my best friend, who makes some fabulous shortbread, you need to knead it with your hands a while. It’ll soften/work in the butter. If you’re doing this on a floured board and it’s very dry, wet your hands a little. Too much water will make it tough, though, so be carefull.
It sounds like you don’t have enough butter. I think 1 cup is 2 sticks, right? Did you use that much?
Don’t add water (except maybe a tad to wet your hands while kneading) or god forbid, corn oil. You’ll end up with something but it won’t be shortbread. It probably won’t even be edible.
I don’t know if packing it into something is going to work. It’s still not going to stick together.
The proportions of flour to sugar to butter are about right, so I’m not sure what the problem could be. Perhaps the butter was a tad cold if it was 65 degrees, but I don’t know if a few degrees warmer would make much difference.
You did only use 2-1/2 cups of flour? (Sorry to harp on the measurements, but when baked sweet items don’t turn out right, it’s nearly always because of incorrect measurements, or incorrect temperature of the butter.)
Also, you’re using the correct flour? Not cake flour when the recipe specifies all-purpose?
I think you might have to stop at the bakery! I am not sure if dough that isn’t working can be fixed.
Well, I have made cookies. Can’t claim they taste wonderful, can’t claim they are beautiful, but they are genuinely recognizable as cookies and taste ‘okay’ and so I will inflict them on the coworkers tomorrow.
Kneading started making some of the dough stick together, so I figure that temperature was a big part of the problem. I’m actually infamous (to my hubby at least) for having cold hands…generally a good thing for a baker, if not for shortbread.
In the end I cut one more T. of butter into the heap and stuck it into the microwave at the very lowest setting for just 15 seconds, and I was finally able to get the stuff to hold together.
Not wanting to press my luck I abandoned the idea of rolling it into fingers. I hacked the dough into quarters and flattened each hunk into a half inch thick disk on a baking sheet. Then I brushed them with beaten egg, sprinkled on the sugar and chopped almonds, pricked them all over. As soon as each disk came out of the oven I cut it into wedges and let it cool.
As I said, the result at least looks like cookies, and can be picked up in your fingers and eaten – I guess that’s good enough for tomorrow, since I’m out of time.
The recipe, however, will NOT make it into my permanent collection.
Please, don’t swear off the shortbread - it can be done. I can’t find my sister’s incredible recipe, but this one looks very similar:
Whipped Shortbread
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
Combine all ingredients and beat for 10 minutes (seriously - this is what makes them melt in your mouth).
Drop from teaspoon (I think you can also roll and cut) onto baking sheet.
Bake at 350°F for approx. 17 minutes until bottoms are very lightly browned.
