I topped these delicious butter cookies with raw turbinado sugar.

Every good chef needs to have a handful of tried-and-true recipes that are consistently reliable and delicious, that can lend themselves to lots of variations and be made in a pinch. I have some excellent recipes for pastry cream, yellow cake, chocolate cake, lemon curd, and brownies. These staples provide a great foundation for building a much larger catalog. I know I can always whip them up quickly and without any guesswork. But until recently my repertoire had been missing something basic: a shortbread or butter cookie recipe I could pair with all of the wonderful custards that I have been making.

I set out to try three different recipes: a classic shortbread recipe from The All-American Cookie Book (Nancy Baggett, ©2001), a shortbread cookie recipe from one of my all-time favorite and most unfailingly inspirational books, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook (Ina Garten, ©1999), and finally a butter cookie recipe from a reputable but so far un-tested (by me) cookbook titled Chez Panisse Desserts (Lindsey Remolif Shere, ©1985). Each dough was easy enough to put together, chill, roll out, and bake – okay, in all truth, the classic shortbread recipe was a little dry and difficult to shape – but the results were completely different in both taste and texture.

The classic shortbread recipe did turn out to be my least favorite. The flavor was pleasant, a kind of sweet, buttery vanilla, but the texture lacked the proper moistness in my opinion, even with the consideration that the cookies would be paired with a custard to help soften the mouth-feel. No offense to Ms. Baggett, but I don’t anticipate making them again. Ina’s shortbread recipe flavor was also delicious, sweet but not too sweet, and crisp; however, I found the texture to be slightly hard and chewy. I thought the recipe would be great as a tart crust, but I found it missing the wow factor as a cookie on its own. Finally, I tried the butter cookie from Chez Panisse and was surprised at how much I liked it as a complete cookie. This was literally the first recipe that I attempted from the cookbook and I’m always a bit skeptical of diving into new books/authors, no matter how reputable they are. But the flavor of the Chez Panisse butter cookie was exceptional, with the perfect balance of vanilla and butter, and a texture that was slightly chewy but still crisp. After I bit into it, I immediately started thinking of all of the ways that this cookie could act as a supporting element of a range of desserts.

The shortbread / butter cookie experiment was a great lesson in recipe testing, but more importantly, I came away with a new cookie recipe that I know I will use regularly in my catering menus. The side-by-side taste-test with the other two cookies was also invaluable in helping me to distinguish three seemingly similar recipes.  Below is the winning cookie’s recipe:

Butter Cookies

Ingredients:
• 1C unsalted butter
• ¾ C granulated sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1t vanilla extract
• 2C all-purpose flour
• 1/8t salt

Process:
1. Cream butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy
2. Add the egg yolk and extract and mix until combined
3. Gradually stir in the flour and salt, and mix until just combined
4. Chill in refrigerator for at least a half hour.
5. Preheat oven to 350°F
6. Divide the dough in half and roll out each portion to ¼” thickness
7. Cut out cookies in desired shape and lay on a parchment-lined baking sheet
8. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until lightly golden at the edges, remembering to rotate half-way through the cooking process to ensure even baking
9. Cool cookies on rack and store in airtight container for up to three days or in the freezer for up to one month