Bien Cuit Shortbread Recipe on Food52 (2024)

Okay - I put my parchment paper in my baking dish. How are you able to smooth the dough? I used fingers and left finger prints. Tried rolling a glass across it, left tire tracks. My rolling pin is too long for my 13 x 9 pan. Guess I should have used a cookie sheet?

I measured grams and mixed with paddle then placed the dough as describe with a chilling. When baked and removed from pan I could not cut the bars as each cut broke the bar. Though really delicious I had nothing but small pieces to eat. What went wrong???

Love this recipe, used the food processor and pulsed until just combined, assembled the dough at lunchtime and chilled for about 5 hours before baking, came out fantastic, will make again!

Love love love this recipe. I just piled it all into the processor, blitzed until it came together, and followed the rest of the recipe after that. Unfortunately for my waistline , very delicious!

I never made this shortbread simply because the recipe is metric and I didn't feel like converting it. Ins read, I made Ted Lasso's Shortbread. It's easy and the delicious!

I adore these biscuits, as many of my unwitting guinea pigs do, but I do agree the recipe needs minor adjustments. I used a non-stick 13x9 tin and 45 minutes is ample time at the temperature provided. A dough scraper is your best friend here, it makes for a perfectly spread tin. I followed the advice of previous commenters and combined a sprinkle of both Maldon salt and turbinado sugar for extra deliciousness. Walker's could never.

Dana July 19, 2023

Turned out lovely, though I put chopped crystallized ginger in one half of dough and mini semi sweet chips and chopped tart cherries ( dried) in the other half. Next time I might try tart cherries with dried apricot and almonds as I have when making biscotti.

update on my post of May 17, 2023. When first out of the oven and cooled a bit, they were a bit chewy. After they cooled completely, they hardened up to the extent that they were impossible to bite into. I thought i followed the recipe exactly, and I'm a pretty good home baker, but what i did wrong eludes me. Any thoughts?

i made these for the first time today. The dough buckled a bit as it cooked, leaving a bumpy top, not the smooth looking tops of the photos with the recipe. So i wondered, after i turned it out onto a board, was i supposed to sprinkle the sugar on the bottom of the dough? Otherwise, i found the shortbread a bit chewy, with a delightful flavor.

yona April 25, 2023

THESE. ARE. AWESOME! But I must say, I got a bit scared after I put the butter in to the mixer. I'm a good cook, but a novice baker, so I'm not familiar yet with the way things work...the chemistry of baking. I followed the instructions to a "t," only I didn't have any unsalted butter, so I just used less salt. I mixed the dry ingredients, then began to add the cubed butter. I stood there and waited for it all to form a dough...and waited...and waited. It blended nicely, but never went beyond the "breadcrumb" stage. So I logged in and began to write a question to get some help; perhaps I got the measurements wrong. I have a scale, so the unit wasn't a problem. About halfway through my post, I heard the mixer begin to "work" harder (like it does when a dough begins to form). It went from "breadcrumbs" to a doughball in literally seconds! I was so startled, but also very pleased! My lesson? Have some patience. YouTube shorts are called "shorts" for a reason; they're deceptive!
Next time I make them, I'm going to add a little anise seed and sprinkle the top with sugar and cinnamon, like biscochitos!

I made these and they are delicious! Although, it is difficult to push the dough into a 13 x 9 sheet pan, so I rolled it out to make it easier and more even. It took around 45 minutes to bake, and I let it cool for at least 15 minutes. Even though I was very gentle and cautious about removing it from the pan, the bars did crack. Cutting them was also a bit of a challenge. I feel like when I make them again, I would cool them in the fridge, and then cut them. I think they would be less crumbly, and it would be easier all around. The finished product is absolutely melt-in-your-mouth delicious. I chose to finish them with Fleur de sel, and that to me, was the perfect choice.

Just made them. These are so delicious! Thank you!

Thank-you for the metric weight measurements! I have shifted my baking and bread making to weighing out the flour and butter (much more consistent than archaic imperial or cups) but there are maddeningly few recipes that come in weights. I also love the King Arthur flour recipes for this reason.

Why or why can you not include measurements that do not require the cook to run to the nearest Sur La Table and buy a weighing scale? They are called "cups" and "tablespoons" and so on, and have been used in every cook book since Adam asked Eve to write down her recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Big disappointment, and egotistical to boot

Not what I expected, nor my favorite style of shortbread. Made as written plus added 1 t vanilla. In my opinion, the texture is too flaky, and too dry despite the butter residue on my fingers. I had expected more of a melt-away style shortbread. I was dubious about the application of turbinado AFTER baking and was right, it just falls off. IMO, would be better sprinkled on top before baking, and just lift out the shortbread with the parchment sling, rather than turn out onto a board. I can certainly understand why this would appeal to many, it's just not for me. I'm glad the bakery was kind enough to share their recipe, and glad I tried it.

Is this recipe available in standard, non-metric measurements? I tried looking at a conversion chart, but it is still not that easy to decipher.

I loved this! I used quarter sheet pan and used a dough scraper to flatten out the top of my dough. I also added some anise seeds, vanilla bean scrapings and a bit of lemon zest to mine. So good! Also, I'm American, but I definitely prefer and appreciated the grams measurements (so I can just tare the bowl each time I add an ingredient instead of having to scoop and measure, bc I'm lazy that way)

Too bad only metric measurement is provided. Come on Food52, you have the staff of testers. Have someone convert to USCS (US Imperial) & then test the recipe for accuracy, then edit this shortbread recipe to show both metric & USCS (US Imperial). Thanks.

So glad you posted this recipe. Looking forward to making it tonight!