Chocolate Dipped Pistachio Shortbread With Sugared Hibiscus Flowers

As I have said before, I love cookies; but shortbread cookies are on my list of top five favorites. Unlike a traditional cookie, shortbread cookies are meant to be slightly crumbly (as opposed to soft). Shortbread is a Scottish biscuit traditionally made with one part sugar, two parts butter, three parts flour–and no eggs. Lots of things can be added to shortbread to alter the texture. More modern recipes may use a combination of both regular sugar and confectioners’ sugar, or exclusively confectioners’ sugar as in my recipe. For those who find baking challenging, these are about as easy as it gets–and you can adapt the recipe in many ways.

You can roll and slice shortbread cookies, like my slice-and-bake icebox holiday cookies, which I posted about in December. You can also make them in a large pan and cut them into squares or wedges. If you wish to go ultra-traditional, you can get earthenware molds for that classic shortbread look. For mine, I treated them like a refrigerator cookie and made the dough into rectangular logs (rather than round ones) to keep with a more traditional shape.

Historically, shortbread is believed to be derived from medieval biscuit bread made from leftover bread. Shortbread is widely associated with Christmas and Hogmanay (Scottish New Year) festivities in Scotland. Originally considered an expensive luxury food item (because of the high butter content), it typically was served only on special occasions and at celebrations. The most widely recognized commercialized brand is Walkers, which you can find just about anywhere.

As I mentioned, shortbread is adaptable. These days, chocolate chip shortbread has become a thing.  I prefer my chocolate chips in a soft cookie.  In this recipe, I add pistachios to the batter for more flavor and texture.  I also dip them in chocolate, sprinkle them with more chopped pistachios, and add a few sugared hibiscus flower crystals–a fun product I’ve been playing around with–to make them pop even more.

Although these are not Christmas holiday cookies, they sure would be lovely during holiday time so if you don’t try them now, file them away for later.  My boys said these cookies were “very fancy and delicious,” a stamp of approval I will gladly accept.