Vanilla Bean Shortbread Cookies (Salted Dark Chocolate Pecan On Top Option too!)

Vanilla Bean Shortbread Cookies are rich and buttery, vanilla bean heavenly infused, perfectly crumbly, delicately tender and literally melt-in-your-mouth.  

You can have these as is, which are most delicious and/or you can have them dipped in sinfully Salted Dark Chocolate with a sprinkling of pecans. 

Both of these recipes are wonderful for the holidays and shortbread cookies are the perfect cookie for shipping.  The sandy, crumbly texture has been already dried out, so shortbread cookies will be as good on day 5 as they were fresh out of the oven. Pretty cool huh? 🙂

In general, the word “short” when used in cooking, applies to something with a high butter or fat content and a crumbling texture. Hence shortbread = buttery sweet biscuit.  Wonderful with tea or coffee.

My husband told me, not too long ago, to “Stick to Baking”. Of course, rightfully so, after my horribly failed attempt to assemble a wooden filing cabinet together on my own, as a personal challenge to myself.  

You would never know it was a filing cabinet by looking at it and it was supposed to look beautiful once assembled, according to the picture. Supposed too!!  I started at 7:00 pm and still wasn’t done at 10:30 p.m. and I was pretty much delirious, frustrated  and mad by that time…I needed these shortbread cookies or mass amounts of liquor!!  I went for the cookies…

I swore it was the store’s fault with crappy instructions and how could I be wrong?

Have you noticed, that happens in recipes too?   I’ve learned, you need to follow the instructions or you end up with sometime slightly off and lots of issues that could arise.  

So if I can give you one or two good pieces of advice, always read through the instructions before you make the recipe and have all of your ingredients out, prepped out as much as possible and life will be much easier. 

Thank goodness for these gorgeous Salted Dark Chocolate Covered Vanilla Bean Shortbread Cookies and hooray for my husband for tearing the cabinet apart and putting it together the right way!  

Hmm…he’s right.  I think I’ll definitely “stick to baking”. 

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Vanilla Bean Shortbread Cookies (Salted Dark Chocolate Pecan On Top Option too!)

Vanilla Bean Shortbread Cookies are rich and buttery, vanilla bean heavenly infused, perfectly crumbly, delicately tender and literally melt-in-your-mouth.   You can have these as is, which are most delicious and/or you can have them dipped in sinfully Salted Dark Chocolate with a sprinkling of pecans. 

Author: Kim Lange

Ingredients

• 2 sticks butter 1 cup, softened
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
• ½ cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups all purpose flour - minus 2 tablespoons

Salted Dark Chocolate Pecan Topping

• 1 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1 teaspoon butter
• 1/2 cup pecans chopped

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350­°.
2. Using a mixer, cream butter, vanilla extract, vanilla bean paste, salt and confectioners sugar in a large bowl.
3. Add in flour and continue to mix until a soft dough forms, the mix will be dry and crumbly at first but will come together. I usually stop mixing half way through and start using my hands to work the dough together.
4. Tear off a large piece of parchment paper and scoop dough on to the parchment paper and make a log using the parchment paper to roll it up about 10 inches or so and then twist the ends of the parchment paper. Place in fridge for 30 minutes.
5. Take cookie dough out of fridge and slice 1/4 to 1/3 inch and if you want you can roll the cookie edges in a sanding sugar if you wish.
6. Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 18-20 minutes or until edges are a golden brown and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
7. Once cookies have cooled, I place baked cookies in fridge for 10 minutes before dipping in chocolate.

Salted Dark Chocolate Pecan Topping

1. Melt chocolate and butter in microwave in microwavable bowl for 30 seconds, stir, repeat again 2 more times.
2. Dip tops of cookies or sides of cookies in melted chocolate, Sprinkle some sea salt on top of the chocolate and then sprinkle pecan bits and place on parchment paper.
3. Let cookies set, or place in fridge for faster setup for 5 minutes.

Recipe Notes

If you want rolled cookies:
Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface until it's 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick.
Cut out cookies using a 2 in round cookie cutter.

Other options:
Use white chocolate or milk chocolate and use sprinkles to make them festive!