Betty Crocker's Cooky Book: Butterscotch Shortbread

Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book: Butterscotch Shortbread

When I think Shortbread I think of the red plaid box containing Walker’s shortbread. I think of a sweet, buttery and crumbly cookie. This butterscotch shortbread recipe did not meet my high Walker’s shortbread expectations. It also didn’t meet my “butterscotch” flavor expectations. It doesn’t contain vanilla flavoring or butterscotch flavoring of any kind, relying solely on brown sugar for flavor.

This recipe is clearly geared towards a beginner cook as the recipe only contains five ingredients. The recipe is simple and so is the cookie.

Butterscotch Shortbread

1 cup shortening

½ cup brown sugar

¼ cup granulated sugar

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix together the shortening and both sugars. In a separate bowl mix the flour and salt and then combine the two bowls. Roll the dough out to ¼ inch thick and use cookie cutter to get desired shape. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

This was another recipe in this book that called for a cup of shortening and then specified that you could do part butter or margarine. With a high anticipation of a buttery flavor as my end result, I was really surprised to see the recipe actually give you the option of using only shortening. I went for half butter and half shortening.

As my cookies reached 20 minutes it was quite clear to pull them out. But for having golden brown cookies in the oven the smell was rather bland. I opted for a star shaped cookie and found the ends of each star to be significantly more cooked than the middle. Now I know why most shortbread I have seen is in such boring uniform shapes.

A signature move for shortbread is to have that little salty kick at the end. This cookie did deliver on that salty kick. While crispy and sweet, the cookie had some softness to it that didn’t provide the crumble I was looking for. It also had very little butter flavor. This could have been the shortening or the fact that I used margarine and not real butter. Either way it was considered to be following the recipe and didn’t have quite the same taste I thought it should.

It’s a simple cookie in terms of ease in execution and with brown sugar being your star flavor; it’s simple in terms of taste too. If you’re in a crunch for a cookie and you’ve just found out your eggs have gone bad, then give this recipe a try.