Earl Grey Shortbread Cookies with Lemon Glaze Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to making good shortbread cookies? ›

The most common mistakes when making shortbread are over-working the dough, and incorporating too much flour. The less you work the dough, the more crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth your shortbread cookies will be.

So, if you are looking for a more "traditional" way to serve Earl Grey tea, try a classic Earl Grey blend like Mindful Morning and add a squeeze of lemon and a spoonful of sugar (or better yet, infused sugar).

Butter is an emulsifier and it makes cookies tender. It also adds in the crispy-around-the-edges element. Adding too much butter can cause the cookies to be flat and greasy. Adding too little butter can cause the cookies to be tough and crumbly.

The key with shortbread is not to overhandle it. Make the dough exactly as instructed, but don't mess around making shapes or over rolling the dough - you will end up with delicious but tough biscuits. Stretching and pulling the dough activates the gluten in the flour, making chewy cookies and not crisp ones.

Takeaway: look for recipes that use granulated sugar for a more crisp-style shortbread and powdered sugar for a more tender shortbread!

But in this shortbread cookie recipe, it really makes a difference. Chilling the dough helps the cookies hold their shape. If you don't chill your shortbread dough, the cookies will spread as they bake.

Piercing the shortbread with a fork is not only for decoration, but it's meant for more even baking. Poking holes in the shortbread allows the heat to penetrate the cookie, hence more even baking. Notice I'm using powdered sugar here. You'll see lots of shortbread recipes using granulated sugar.

Should butter be cold or room temperature for making shortbread? Always start with cold butter straight from the refrigerator. This will keep the dough from warming up, making it greasy and difficult to roll out.

Earl Grey tea pairings

Americans typically drink their Earl Grey with milk and sugar, but Chatterton prefers it the British way — with lemon and sugar. "Milk has a tendency to do strange things to black tea," he says. "It dulls the flavor a bit. It's not as crisp and sharp.

Do Brits put milk in Earl Grey? ›

Traditionally, Earl Grey tea is served with a slice of lemon and sugar to taste. According to YouGov, a massive 85% of British Earl Grey and English breakfast tea drinkers enjoy their tea with milk. In the US, they like to add milk and sugar to their Earl Grey tea.

Earl Grey is the perfect drink for a cold winter night. It's spicy and flavorful but not too heavy, so you can have one after dinner without feeling weighed down or sleepy. Plus, it tastes great with honey and lemon! Imagine a cup of black tea with a hint of citrus, honey, and lemon—now add some whiskey!

Traditional shortbread recipes are 1 part sugar, 2 parts butter, and 3 parts flour.

Bake the shortbread until it's a light golden brown across the top surface and a deeper golden brown around the edges, about 35 minutes. Remove the shortbread from the oven and turn it out of the pans and onto a clean work surface.

-Chill unbaked shortbread cookies in the fridge for 30 minutes prior to baking in a 350 degree oven for 12-18 minutes.

It's all in the quality of the ingredients. With such a short ingredient list, the quality makes a big difference. The perfect shortbread cookie should be crumbly, but not dry, buttery but not greasy and sweet but not sickly.

Unsalted Butter: As the base of nearly all shortbread recipes, butter supplies these classic cookies with flavor and softness. Make sure you use room temperature butter that's still cool to the touch. If it's too warm, the butter and sugar cannot properly cream and the cookies will taste dense.

Traditional Scottish shortbread is a simple recipe made with sugar, butter, flour, and salt. Other shortbread styles will include leavening agents like baking powder and baking soda, which makes them crisp instead of crumbly like traditional Scottish shortbread.