Believe it or not, there is more to making these novelty cookies than might be apparent at first blush. Learn from my experience/mistakes here.

Let’s start with the recipe. King Arthur’s recipe book, blog, and website are trusted sources for good recipes and solid advice, but I found this instance to be a bit lacking. The recipe most certainly holds its shape/performs well when using a press. It calls for light brown sugar; that’s not what I’ll use next time. I think I’m going to use plain white sugar. Second, they recommend that you chill your dough for a few hours or overnight. Mine dough had a 24 hour chill on it and was impossible to roll out when I removed it from the fridge. Think hockey puck. I knew to let it warm up a bit but here is where it gets tricky. Once the dough is at a temperature that will allow you to roll it out it continues to warm. What that means is that each time you apply the press to the dough you have to reduce the amount of pressure you apply because the dough is softer and softer by the second. I will describe the process of finding your rhythm and pressure with this to be analogous to learning to ride a bike. It’s not something you can put into words well, it’s something you learn by feel (and by a few fails). If you don’t take anything else away from this post, heed my advice to make a few practice batches before you think about making holiday gift platters or putting those out on a beautiful tray. You’ll be glad to have had the practice.

Another element of this is the size of the press. You want a big field so your lettering and design are substantial, but a 5 inch round cookie requires some technique that a 3 inch cookie would not because of the size of the field. This is why you will see some unevenness about my lettering, especially in the first batch. I learned that in addition to adjusting the pressure you apply that you need to press around the outer perimeter of the cookies EVENLY in order to achieve a consistent look with any design that goes around the perimeter, whether that would be lettering as in this case or any other design.

DO err on the side of your dough being a little bit thicker than a quarter inch than thinner. The thinner they are, the drier they are.

Ingredients. I found the sugar measurement to be too little as well as the recommendation of a teaspoon of extract. I’ll increase both by 50% next time.

Now let’s talk about that dough getting warmer by the second. I learned that if you chill your pressed cookies on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes or so, you get zero spread or puffing up. If you don’t, you get a little bit of puffing up but it can be enough to obscure your lettering. If the dough gets too warm you’ll see that some of it will adhere to your press. A small dry brush fixes that pronto and you’re back to pressing. Do work on a floured surface and lightly flower the top of your dough. I used a wooden rolling pin but have a marble one that I might try next time. I rolled out on a floured granite surface.

The cookies have a lovely texture if you make them a quarter inch thick or slightly thicker. Ten minutes and onto a cooling rack and you’re set. I lined my baking sheets with parchment paper.

If you’re still here, check out my first try photos. I think I’m going to reach out to my friend Mindy for some tips; she lived in a Nordic country for many years and is the most experienced baker I know. I bet she can turn me on to a banging shortbread recipe as these stamped shortbread cookies are a big tradition in that part of the world. Here ya go!

I know this is late in coming; I promised a follow up with a from scratch recipe a long time ago but I finally made good. For my own sake I’ll be making another batch soon in my quest to master the technique! Have a great Tuesday everybody!