FANCY SHORTBREADS

I fancied up my shortbread recipe for the annual Christmas tray. These were only the leftovers. Half of the dough received the pecan treatment and I added dried blueberries to the other half.

FANCY SHORTBREADS  

3/4 cup soft butter

1 cup flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup icing sugar

• Cream the butter a little but do not beat it until frothy, it should not grow in volume. 
• Creaming the butter on its own will help the dough come together, but overbeating will make it too soft to handle. 
• Sift together the flour, cornstarch and the icing sugar. 
• Combine the creamed butter with the flour mixture. 
• You can flavor the shortbread with some vanilla bean scraping, but extract adds moisture and makes the dough too wet and chilling the dough will not help much. 
• Shape half of the dough into 1 inch balls. 
• Place 1- 1/2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. 
• Flatten them lightly with the palm of the hand and press a pecan into the middle. 
• Add a handful of dried blueberries to the rest of the dough and kneed to combine. 
• Shape the dough into 1 inch balls. 
• Place 1- 1/2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. 
• Flatten lightly with floured fork. 
• Bake at 300F for 15-20 minutes until edges are lightly browned.