butter, brown sugar & flour.

that's all you need to make the most wonderful shortbread cookies EVER!
yep, 3 measly ingredients to wow your families taste buds.

craig's mom made these for his birthday, and ever since i've been just a tad addicted to them.

here are the amounts you will need:
1 cup butter (2 sticks) softened.  you must use butter, no butter imitators allowed!
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
2 1/2 cups flour

preheat that lovely oven of yours to 300 degrees.

cream butter and brown sugar in mixing bowl.

slowly start adding in your flour.
when your mixer starts walking across the counter, finish mixing by hand.

it will be flaky.
if it is too flaky add a tad of water to the dough.
now the important part.
lay out some flour on you dough mat or counter and knead the heck out of the dough til it isn't flaky any more.
like for 5 to 8 minutes.
beat it, punch it, take out all your stress on it.
(like the fact that there is already 18 inches of snow on the ground and it is still snowing!)
have i mentioned i dislike winter?

then roll it out to about 1/8-1/4 inch thick.

(i prefer 1/4 inch)

then take your pizza cutter and cut strips about 1 inch wide.

then cut the opposite direction so you end up with 1 inch by 3 inch pieces.

if some of the pieces have crazy edges, throw them aside and roll them all back out and cut until you have used all the dough.
place on a ungreased cookie sheet.

then prick with a fork about 4 times going down the cookie.

bake at 300 degrees for 25 minutes or until bottom of cookie begins to brown.
let cool.

now this is the most important IMPORTANT part.
empty the entire cookie sheet into a bowl, grab a giant mug of hot cocoa, walk into the living room
and cozy onto the couch under a big comfy quilt, ignore the 18 + inches of blowing snow outside,
turn the TV to lifetime movie network and relax!
you just baked...you deserve it!