Coffee Shortbread Cookie Recipe

Hello, My Friends!

If you are a coffee lover or a shortbread lover, you will love these Coffee Shortbread Cookies. Scrumptious is their middle name! If you know me, you know I love my coffee. I love the scent and flavor and am always trying to make all things coffee...candy, cake, ice cream and especially these lovely cookies.

To make these shortbread cookies, you will need...
2 cups of softened butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons instant coffee
2 teaspoons vanilla and,
4 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

The first thing you need to do is cream the butter, sugar and coffee granules until fluffy. (A side-note on the sugar...Some shortbread recipes use powdered sugar and while they are tasty, I prefer the crispier texture that comes from using granulated sugar.)

Add the vanilla and stir. Lastly, add the four cups of flour and mix well.

At this point you can do a couple of things with the dough. You can use a cookie press. You can roll it into a log and refrigerate it until it hardens and slice off rounds. It's a soft dough and a lot of the time I don't have the patience to be fancy. I just floured the counter, took about a third of the dough out of the bowl, patted it down and rolled it out. You could use cutters, but I just sliced it into squares.

These will not spread so you don't have to worry about refrigerating them. Just stick them into a 350 degree oven for about 10-12 minutes and all will be well. I take them out when the edges are just starting to brown. They won't look done but they are, trust me. Put them on a cooling rack right away and try to wait a minute until they cool down to taste them. Enjoy the light scent of coffee while you're waiting! =)

So, I used a third of the dough and put the rest in the freezer. I shaped it into a log and double wrapped it. If I want more, or a friend comes over, I'll pull it out of the freezer, thaw it on the counter for a little bit and then slice off as many as I need. Also, in theory, the baked cookies will freeze well but they don't tend to last that long around here.
I'm always available for comments, suggestions or questions. Enjoy your cookies!