Shortbread Fingers Recipes

Steps:

• Butter an 8 1/2-inch cake or springform pan; set aside. Sift together flour and salt into a small bowl; set aside. Place butter in bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Cream until fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add sugar, and continue to beat until very light in color and fluffy, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, about 2 minutes more. Add vanilla, if using. Add flour mixture, and combine on low speed, scraping with spatula if necessary, until flour is just incorporated and dough sticks together when squeezed with fingers.
• Pat dough into prepared pan. If rolling out dough to cut into shapes, form into a flat disk; wrap in plastic. Chill until firm, at least 1 hour.
• Roll dough to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 1-by-3-inch rectangles. Score with a knife; chill. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Bake until firm and just starting to color, 20 to 25 minutes.

Steps:

• Cream the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the flour and salt and work the mixture with your fingers or a pastry blender until all the flour is incorporated. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours.
• When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. On a lightly floured surface, roll half the dough until it's 1/4-inch thick. Using a small knife, cut out finger-sized strips, about 3 inches tall, rounding each finger at the top as shown. Place on an ungreased baking sheet. Roll and cut the second half of the dough, and place the baking sheets in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. You can gather together scraps and re-roll them.
• Bake for 15 minutes, until the shortbread is very lightly golden. Do not let the cookies brown. Remove to a wire rack and cool.
• When the cookies are completely cool, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave in a heatproof bowl for 1 minutes. The chips may look unmelted, but stir them with a spoon to see if they have actually softened before putting them in for another minute, if necessary.
• Spoon the melted chocolate into a zipper-lock bag. Seal the bag, pressing out any air. Use a toothpick to make a very tiny hole in one corner of the bag to release a thin stream of chocolate for writing. Decorate the fingers by piping a fingernail at the rounded end, and three horizontal lines to mark the joint at mid-finger. Decorate tombstones with crosses and writing as desired. Allow the chocolate to set before stacking the cookies.

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the butter and 1 cup of sugar until they are just combined. Add the vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and salt, then add them to the butter-and-sugar mixture. Mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together. Dump onto a surface dusted with flour and shape into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.
• Roll the dough 1/2-inch thick and cut with a 3 by 1-inch finger-shaped cutter. Place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Allow to cool to room temperature.
• When the cookies are cool, place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Put 3 ounces of the chocolate in a glass bowl and microwave on high power for 30 seconds. (Don't trust your microwave timer; time it with your watch.) Stir with a wooden spoon. Continue to heat and stir in 30-second increments until the chocolate is just melted. Add the remaining chocolate and allow it to sit at room temperature, stirring often, until it's completely smooth. Stir vigorously until the chocolate is smooth and slightly cooled; stirring makes it glossier.
• Drizzle 1/2 of each cookie with just enough chocolate to coat it.

Steps:

• Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line 2 baking sheets with baking parchment. Put the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat with an electric hand whisk for about 5 mins until pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and beat again until fully incorporated.
• Sift in the flour, cornflour and baking powder, and fold into the mixture using a spatula until combined (the dough should have a tacky consistency). Spoon the dough into a piping bag fitted with a large star-shaped nozzle. If all the mixture doesn't fit, do it in 2 batches.
• Pipe 10cm long, 1.5cm wide fingers onto the baking sheets, making sure there are 3cm spaces between each finger. Bake for 8-10 mins, swapping the trays over halfway through the cooking time, until pale golden and cooked through. Leave to cool on the baking sheets for a few mins, then transfer to wire racks.
• Melt the chocolate separately over a pan of gently simmering water (making sure that the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water) or in the microwave in short bursts, stirring every 15 secs or so. Dip 1 end of the shortbread fingers into the bowl of milk chocolate and the other end in the white chocolate. Leave to set on baking parchment before serving.