All Butter Shortbread Bars - A Classic Quick & Easy Recipe

If you need a good, classic all butter shortbread cookies recipe, here's one for you!

This recipe makes absolutely buttery, crumbly, melt in your mouth cookies, just like how classic shortbread bars are meant to be.

Shortbread cookies are well known for their light, crispy and crumbly texture. And with every bite, you can feel them literally melt in your mouth!

This is a basic all butter shortbread cookies recipe made using only 3 ingredients, i.e. sugar, butter and flour. There is no need for rice flour or corn flour (as some recipes require). And the proportion of these ingredients is in the ratio of 1:2:3. This means, for every 100g of sugar, you use 200g of butter and 300g of flour. Easy right? One thing to remember though is that this ratio is for metric measurement (in grams). It is not the same for imperial measurement (in cups and spoons).

There is no egg in the recipe, which means it is a great option for vegetarians too!

And this shortbread bars recipe is so versatile, you can adjust it to make many different types of shortbread cookies. I have chosen to roll and cut this classic shortbread into rectangle bars with a knife, but you can also roll and cut these with cookies cutters in any shape you like. You can even decorate them into pretty festive treats!

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How to Make

Ingredients

• All purpose flour
• Butter (salted)
• Granulated sugar (caster sugar)

Mixing the dough

1. Measure flour into a large bowl. Add softened butter into the flour.
2. Mix both until they become crumbly. You can mix them with a cake mixer or rub the butter into the flour with your finger tips until the butter is all mixed into the flour and the mixture is crumbly.
3. Add in the sugar.
4. Mix until well combined. You can do with with the mixer or a large spoon. Make sure it's well distributed with the butter and flour. At this stage, the dough should still be crumbly.
5. If you press the dough with your hands, it should come together.
6. Turn it out onto a clean workspace and press it together to form a dough. Do not knead the dough, suffice if you press it together into a soft dough ball.

Rolling and cutting the bars

1. Divide the dough into smaller sections (for easy rolling and cutting). Place the shortbread cookie dough in between 2 sheets of parchment paper. And roll it to desired thickness. For consistency across all my cookies, I place 2 dowel rods on either side of my cookie dough, making sure they are positioned within the width of my rolling pin.
2. And I literally roll on the dowel rods. That way, my shortbread cookie dough does not get any flatter than the diameter of the dowel rods, which is the thickness I want for my cookies.
3. And since I was cutting the cookies into rectangle bars with just my icing scraper, just so that they are all of the same size, I rolled my dough on a cake decorating mat that has grid patterns on it.
4. I used those lines to guide me in cutting my classic shortbread cookies into consistently sized bars measuring 1 inch by 3 inches. But if you don't have the mat, you can simply use a ruler to guide you.

Shaping the shortbread

1. To transfer the cut shortbread bars onto my baking trays, use a spatula to lift them. That way, the cookies will not lose shape.
2. The shortbread cookies don't rise when baking, so it is ok to put them close to one another (so long as they are not touching one another).
3. And for the final touch, use a fork to imprint tiny holes on each of the shortbread cookies. This step is optional, you can leave them plain if you like.
4. Bake the shortbread bars for about 10 minutes until the sides start turning golden brown. Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool completely to room temperature on a wire rack before storing them in an airtight container.

This shortbread cookies recipe yields approximately 39 classic all butter shortbread bars.

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Notes

Butter

• The butter I used in this all butter shortbread cookies recipe is salted. You can use unsalted butter too, but remember to add about ¼ teaspoon fine salt when rubbing in the flour and the butter.
• Butter should be soft but not melted. Ideally, when you press your finger into the butter, it must still be firm, but soft enough to be poked.

Use granulated or powdered sugar

• This shortbread bars recipe calls for the use of granulated sugar. Powdered sugar is a good option too, but not coarse sugar. Coarse sugar is too coarse and you will see little specks of sugar in your baked shortbread bars.
• Also, if you are intending to use icing sugar, remember to measure it with a weighing scale. Cup measurement for granulated and icing sugar is not the same, meaning, 1 cup of granulated sugar does not equal the same weight as 1 cup of icing sugar. For the shortbread cookies recipe below, you would need to use 100g of granulated or icing sugar.

How to avoid the cookie dough from sticking when rolling out?

• The cookie dough, once formed, is soft, but not sticky to the touch. However, it does tend to stick a little to the rolling pin as you roll it. For smooth rolling, I place it between 2 parchment sheets. That way, it does not stick to my rolling pin and is a lot easier to work with.
• And when lifting the cut shortbread bars onto baking trays, I find using a spatula to lift them really helpful in retaining the bar shapes.

Placing the shortbread in a baking tray

• There are no leavening agents in this all butter shortbread cookies recipe, which means the cookies will not rise in size during baking. They do puff up a little, but it's almost negligible. Hence, when placing these cookies in a baking tray for baking, you can place them near to one another. A mere gap of about 1cm to 2 cm is sufficient, for easy handling.

Do not over work the dough

• To ensure your shortbread cookies turn out perfectly soft and crumbly, take note to not overwork the dough after adding in the sugar. Suffice if you press it together to form a ball. This is because, when you work it for too long, the gluten in the flour becomes stretchy, and there is a tendency for your shortbread cookies to become hard.

Baking time depends on cookie size and thickness

• The baking time indicated in my shortbread cookies recipe below is for bar shaped cookies in the size of 1 inch by 3 inches. The thickness is about ½ cm. If your cookies are larger or thicker than this, the baking time would need to be increased accordingly. And if they are smaller, then the time needs to be reduced as such.
• You can also cut the shortbread dough with cookie cutters instead of as bars. Cookie stamps and cookie press are another great way to make these all butter shortbread cookies.

Recipe variation

• And some grated citrus peel (orange or lemon) for a citrus flavored shortbread cookies or biscuits.
• You can also add some finely chopped chocolate into the dough before rolling and cutting to make chocolate shortbread.
• Alternatively, cut and bake the shortbread as indicated in this recipe, and once the cookies are baked, drizzle the top with dark or white chocolate.

Storing the shortbread bars

• This classic all butter shortbread recipe yields shortbread bars that last well. I have tried keeping them for 3 weeks, and they were fine. Just remember to store them in an airtight container to retain their crisp and crumbly texture.

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Like this classic recipe? Here are my other posts you might want to check out

• Matcha Shortbread Cookies
• Butterfly Sugared Shortbread Cookies
• Mango Jam Filled Shortbread Cookies
• Snowflake Sugar Cookies
• No Spread Sugar Cookies
• Brown Sugar Shortbread
• Strawberry Oat Bars with Nutty Crumble Topping

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Recipe (Printable)

Here is the full printable version of my easy all butter shortbread bars recipe.

And that's my classic all butter shortbread bars recipe.

Happy Baking 🙂