Citrus “Shortbread”

While this citrus shortbread has the standard ingredients for shortbread, it certainly doesn’t have that texture. These cookies are wonderfully chewy but still have a lovely melt in your mouth quality. A great addition to any tray of Christmas cookies!

The Recipe

by volume                                                        by weight

1½ cups butter                                           340 grams butter

1/4 cup orange juice                                60 grams orange juice

3¾ cups powdered sugar                    454 grams powdered sugar

zest of 3 large oranges                         36 grams orange zest

4¼ cups all purpose flour                    510 grams all purpose flour

2 teaspoons salt                                      8 grams salt

 

Directions

Heat the oven to 350F. Mix the butter, powdered sugar, and zest together until smooth.

Add the salt and the orange juice and combine. Add the flour and mix just until completely combined.

Press the dough into the pan as smoothly as possible.

Sprinkle the top of the dough with a generous amount of sugar and press lightly into the surface of the dough.

Bake for about 30 minutes until the surface is puffed and golden brown.

Unlike traditional shortbread, these cookies needs to be cool in order to cut them with nice, clean edges.

 

Alternatives

This citrus shortbread is really hard to improve upon! I always make these with orange zest, but lemon zest or even grapefruit zest would make delicious, refreshing choices.

These cookies can also be frozen after baking without any loss of texture or flavor but make sure the cookies thaw uncovered so that no moisture collects on the surface of the shortbread.

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