Almond-Orange Shortbread

The Orange Breakfast Muffins won the weekly poll and I will be baking them ... this Friday. I bought a bunch of oranges for the muffins and I realised that I had too many, so I figured I might as well also bake the Almond-Orange Shortbread. The recipe is by Martha Stewart and it's a really good recipe. I've never baked shortbread before and also never used confectioners' sugar instead of regular white sugar with cookies. The only minor note is that my dough was so incredibly crumbly, it didn't even resemble cookie dough. So I had to add some more butter, which made it a little bit better. I also omitted the sliced almonds. I did buy some almonds but they tasted disgusting and I was afraid that they would ruin the shortbread!

Almond-Orange Shortbread recipe: Martha Stewart - Everyday Food

Ingredients: (I halved the recipe)
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature (I halved the recipe and started with 1/2 cup butter, but it wasn't enough so I added another 1/4 cup)
- 1 cup confectioners' sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon almond extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
- Grated zest of 1 orange (about 2 teaspoons)
- 3/4 cup sliced almonds

Instructions:
- In a mixer bowl, beat butter, sugar, almond extract, and salt until smooth.
- With mixer on low speed, add flour and orange zest; mix just until a dough forms.
- With a wooden spoon, rubber spatula, or your hands, gently mix in almonds.
- On a piece of waxed paper, form dough into a rectangular log, 12 inches long, 2 1/2 inches wide, and 1 inch thick.
- Wrap log in the paper, and freeze until firm, at least 1 hour and up to 3 months. If freezing longer than 1 day, wrap log again, in plastic wrap.
- Preheat oven to 325F/170C.
- Remove dough from freezer. (If dough has been in freezer a long time and is frozen solid, let it sit at room temperature 30 minutes so it slices without crumbling.)
- With a sharp knife (I used a flower-shaped cookie cutter), cut dough into 1/4-inch-thick slices (mine were a lot thicker! 1 inch I would say); place on ungreased baking sheet at least 1 inch apart.
- Bake until edges just begin to turn golden, 20 to 25 minutes. (mine were done in 22 minutes)
- Cool 5 minutes on baking sheet; transfer cookies to a rack to cool completely.


The shortbread 'dough'. See how crumbly it was? I had to add some more butter.

Adding some more butter and freezing it, transformed it into real shortbread dough.

Before ...

... After!

The shortbread has a lovely light almond/orange taste to it.

With some freshly squeezed orange juice.