Nutty Chocolate-Dipped Shortbread

  • Chocolate Nut Dipped Shortbread

    Winner.

    Take a perfectly good shortbread cookie ball, and dip it in chocolate.  You could stop there and die a happy dessert-eater.  But no.

    Toast some nuts- pecans, walnuts, perhaps a medley of the two.  Chop them up and sprinkle them on the chocolate before it sets, so the nutty-chocolate situation sets in a “we are one” kind of way.  And there you have it- a perfectly incredible and tiny cookie to make the world right again.

    Another plus about making small cookies: you can eat several and feel like you’ve just had a little bit of dessert.  Very different than cutting yourself a massive hunk of Chocolate Mocha Cake with Fudgy Frosting and then feeling all guilty and needing like a diet needs to take shape on the horizon.  Nope.  Pop a few of these cookies down the hatch and keep the diet at bay.

    Adapted from my Classic Shortbread Cookie recipe…

    2 cups all-purpose flour

    1 1/4 teaspoons salt

    1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter (room temperature)

    1/4 cup granulated sugar

    1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

    1 teaspoon vanilla

    3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chips, melted

    3/4 cup pecans, toasted and finely chopped

    1. Sift flour and salt together in a small bowl and set aside.  Cream butter with a stand mixer (or hand-held mixer) until light (2 – 3 minutes), then add sugar and beat for additional 2 – 3 minutes (scraping sides of bowl a couple of times throughout).  Add vanilla and mix until combined.  Add flour & salt combo and mix on low speed until dough is just incorporated together into a ball.
    2. Pat dough into a flat disc and wrap with plastic wrap; chill until very firm (at least an hour).  Roll dough into 1-inch thick balls in your hand (you might need dough to ‘warm up’ a bit to do this).  Chill dough balls until firm before baking.
    3. Preheat oven to 325°, and bake shortbread until firm to the touch and turning golden brown (about 20-25 minutes).  Cool on a wire rack.
    4. In a small shallow bowl, melt chocolate in microwave for 1 minute then stir.  (Microwave for additional 10 – 15 second increments if necessary.)  Dip tops of cooled cookies into chocolate and sprinkle chopped nuts over chocolate right away.  Let set for about 30 minutes.

    Tips:

    • Check out the official shortbread tips in the original post.  Remember to bake these for the full time, until they are quite golden brown and smelling up a storm (like butter and wonderfulness).
    • Bittersweet?  You could totally use semi-sweet or milk chocolate for this recipe.  Make both and do a taste test to see if you notice the difference.
    • What kind of nut to use?  It’s almost as tough a question as the one above.  Walnuts rock.  Pecans are great too.  Chopped almonds (oooh- with milk chocolate as the classic combo, like in Milk Chocolate & Toasted Almond Toffee) would be good too- and even hazelnuts.  Not sure about Brazil nuts.  Does anyone even like them?  (Regardless of your nut choice, just make sure you toast them first.  Place on a baking sheet in the oven for 8 minutes or so, until fragrant.)  (Oh.  Don’t burn them.)
    • Sprinkle the nuts right after you dip the chocolate or they won’t stick.
    • Dip thoughts… you could dip the bottoms of the cookies in chocolate too, if you want.  Just let them dry/set on a sheet of parchment paper.
    • Enjoy!

     

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    January 8th, 2014 | More Sweets Please | No Comments | Tags: , ,

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