Salted Rosemary Shortbread

In addition to all of the family events coming up this year, Dan and all of his high school friends are finally turning 30! (no more old lady jokes, sweet!)  Its funny to me how close all of his friends have stayed despite going to different colleges and living all over the DC area and beyond.  The group looks really different now with new friends, girlfriends and spouses.  Three of our friends live together and are the central meeting place for parties. I’m pretty impressed with how regularly they let us invade their space! 

 

Our friend Jason turned 30 last week and our friends hosted a pot luck party.  I see pot lucks as a great opportunity to break out another decadent dish. I made a shortbread recipe in January that turned out pretty well, but I wanted to try a sweet and savory.  I figure that bringing sweet and salty dish means that even a cookie could be mistaken for an appetizer.  These were really well received and super easy to make.  If I could control myself I would make them, freeze them and just bring them out for future events.

 

 

Salted Rosemary Shortbread

adapted from The Fromagette

 

Commitment Level: This recipe only needed a few dishes and were really easy to put together. They get better when they have cooled. So these are great to make ahead and travel with.  I’m not going to measure the nutrition content (see: 3 sticks of butter).

 

3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature (very important!)
3/4 cup sugar,
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups flour
1 T minced dried rosemary
pink Himalayan Sea Salt

 

1. Preheat the oven to 350.

 

2.  Combine the 3 sticks of butter, the 3/4 c sugar, and 1 t vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer.

 

3.  In a medium bowl combine the 3 1/2 c flour and 1 T Rosemary.

 

4. Slowly pour the flour mixture into the butter mixture on low speed until the dough just comes together.  

 

5.  Turn the dough onto a counter and divide it in half, put it between two pieces of plastic wrap and push it into a disk.  Repeat for the other half of the dough and let it chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

 

6.  Take one of the pieces of dough out of the fridge and roll it out to a 1/2 inch thick.  I used a small mouth glass as a cookie cutter and managed to get almost 30 cookies out of the batch (the last few were tiny scraps).

 

7. Line two baking sheets with Silpats or parchment and place the cookies on the sheets with a little space-mine didn’t spread much so they didn’t need too much room.  Once all of the cookies are on the sheet sprinkle the salt (generously) over the cookie and press the salt into the dough.

 

8. Bake for about 10 minutes.  Move the tray of cookies from top to bottom and front to back. Cook for an additional 10 minutes.  Take them out when the bottoms are lightly golden.  Cool on wire racks and store in an airtight container.