Sally's Christmas Shortbread

Submitted by SusieQusie

"My sister Sally is an excellent cook and this shortbread is one of my favorite things to bake during the holidays. It smells fantastic and tastes wonderful with a hot cup of coffee."

 

• Ready In: 40mins
• Ingredients: 8
• Serves: 16

ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 1⁄2 tablespoons orange zest
• 2 tablespoons ground ginger
• 3⁄4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• confectioners' sugar

directions

1. Beat butter, brown sugar, orange zest, ginger and cloves until fluffy.
2. Stir in baking soda and flour.
3. Divide dough in half.
4. Press into (2) 8" round ungreased baking pans.
5. Bake in a 350 degree fahrenheit oven for 25 minutes or until the tops are dry and cracked, and the edges are slightly higher than the center.
6. Cool in the pans for 5 minutes.
7. Cut into wedges.
8. Prick each wedge with the tines of a fork.
9. Cool and dust with confectioner's sugar.
10. Store tightly covered.

Reviews

[Engrossed]

WOWZERS!!! This is an unbelievably FANTASTIC recipe! This is a mix of some of my favorite things...shortbread (butter), orange, spice and gingerbread. It's slightly chewy and the smell and flavor are out of this world! I used a high quality dark brown molasses sugar and pricked the dough with the fork before baking. This is a KEEPER for sure. Thank you sooo much for this recipe! Made for 1-2-3 hit wonders.

 

[Chef MB]

Delicious, simple, perfection. I made this as a birthday gift for a friend who loves gingersnaps, and she loved them.

 

[Trishinomaha]

Just excellent! I did substitute allspice for the cloves but other than that I followed the recipe exactly. It was a big hit at our family Christmas gathering this year and DIL even asked for the recipe. It is so easy and so good - it's hard to stop nibbling!

 

[Marysdottir]

I can't imagine why anyone would give this less than 5 stars! I had no oranges or orange zest so I used 1/8 tsp orange extract. They are lovely. I took my first batch out of the oven at 23 minutes but since I'm making another one right now (they are so good that one batch of 24 is never going to last a week until Christmas) I think I'll make them just a wee bit crisper and leave them in the full 25 minutes. I baked them in glass pie plates because that's how my grandmother made her shortbread. DH took one bite, his eyes opened really wide and he said "These are goooooood". He was right ( don't tell him I said that!) Thanks very much - these will be made again and again in our house.

 

[annlouise]

Tastes like a ginger snap, but easier to bake, because you're not shaping into cookies. I love spice, especially at Christmastime, so I would try this again but with the cinnamon that another reviewer suggested. I also used salted butter rather than regular. I had a hard time pressing these evenly in the pan, but because these are such good "dippers", I don't mind the crunchy parts. I used an 8" round cast iron and an 8" square pan. I might try it all in a 9x13 sometime, but i do like the shape of the wedges, especially for serving with coffee; they beg to be dipped.