Shortbread Cookies

I am not a big believer in Valentine's day, but this year I got all excited about making cute little pink cookies for my twin girls who are almost 2 years old.

Just to show you how much I don't care for heart shape things, I actually had to buy a set of heart cookie cutters for this. Of course, all the normal metal single heart cookie cutters were sold out at Sur La Table the weekend before Valentine's day, so I ended up with a set of plastic cutters made by Cuisipro.

As much I love making cookies, cut-out cookies are not my favorites. They take too much time and are not all that tasty. Excessive food coloring and sugar used for the decoration are also big turn-off for me too. Somehow I stumbled upon the "Best Shortbread" recipe from Cooks Illustrated. It wasn't meant for cut-out cookies, but the dough was simple to prepare and very easy to cut. I love it!

I followed the baking temperatures and timing instructed in the recipe even though my cookies were much smaller than the pie form described. For thinner cookies, the baking time can be decreased to prevent too much browning. I baked the first batch in its natural color and added red gel food coloring to the second half of the dough. Both worked well and produced very flaky and buttery cookies. The dough withstood my multiple rolling and shaping and it stored well in the fridge for a few days. Perhaps the very first batch was the best, but the subsequent "worked" batches were pretty tasty still.

This recipe is really awesome. I love not only that neat ingredients (oatmeal and corn starch) were added to improve taste and texture, but these items are usually available in any pantry!