I love shortbread. Who doesn’t? I was just discussing with a friend the sorry fact that I could probably gain fifty pounds simply by allowing myself to eat as many Keebler Pecan Shortbread Sandies with milk as I would like. That’s how much I love them! These shortbread cookies aren’t sandy, and if you brew the tea too long they can end up with a bitter taste. But the lightly sweetened dough and floral aroma from the Earl Grey create the perfect combination to keep me from wanting to buy a package of my favorite splurge cookies. Just one or two with a cup of tea would never hurt anyone. 😉
Ingredients:
1 c. boiling water
5 Earl Grey tea bags
4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter, cut into pieces
Flour for dusting rolling surface and rolling pin.
Method:
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Brew tea bags in boiling water. Steep for 5 min. Remove tea bags and chill tea to ice cold. Add lemon juice.
Sift together 4 c. flour, sugar, and salt. Cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Work in the chilled tea and lemon until a dough is formed.
Transfer to a surface dusted with flour. Dust generously and roll to a 3/4″ thick rectangle. Trim edges of rectangle with fluted pastry cutter. Cut with cutter into vertical strips, then horizontally to make rectangular bars. Dust a fork with flour and prick each bar in rows.
Place on ungreased baking sheet and bake for 20 min. for soft shortbread, longer for harder shortbread.