Shortbread Cookies for the Next Flood

If you were on the East coast bracing for Irene, especially in New York, you may have been bored and antsy because you didn’t know what you were supposed to be doing. I was. After I assembled my "Go Pack" and identified and protected my valuables, I was stuck refreshing my Twitter feed and the NYT homepage, where honestly, the news never fully developed in a way that merited my mania. I tried to busy myself with little tasks, but I lacked focus.



But at some point I watched a video for how to make Stupidly Simple Shortbread, and that provided power of purpose for about 30 minutes. I'm not much of a shortbread person—dry, dense textures aren't my thing, and butter isn't really my flavor. But these shortbread cookies came out perfect. They're crisp and light but not super delicate.



I took some liberties with the recipe, drawing mostly from a tip I read in the cute little cookbook Simply Perfect Every Time—that of adding rice flour for a bit of texture—and then wanted to go for a sweet-salty thing by sprinkling the sliced cookies with both sugar and Kosher salt. I made them with the idea that they'd keep well through the flood, but we ate them all before the heavy rain even arrived.

Shortbread Cookies



1 cup flour

1/4 cup rice flour

1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon almond extract



Stir together the flours and salt in a small bowl. Cream the butter and sugar in a standing mixer, until fluffy, about a minute or two at medium speed. Add the extract, and then the flour all at once. Stir, on the mixer’s lowest speed, until JUST combined. Transfer the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and roll it in a log. Place it in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes, or the refrigerator for 45 to 60. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.



Slice the log into uniformly thick cookies and arrange them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Using the tines of a fork or a paring knife, make creatitive little stripes on the top. Then sprinkle each one with sugar and a pinch of Kosher salt. Bake for 15 minutes, until just golden on the edges and golden brown on the bottoms. Cool completely on the baking sheets.