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.