Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies

If you have an Instagram account, read a blog or basically have eyes, you've probably seen these amazing chocolate chunk shortbread cookies!  We decided we needed to make them, too, and they were pretty easy and insanely delicious!  If you want to make them, check this out!

Get your ingredients together.  

For this cookie, you'll want to use a high-quality bar of chocolate that you'll chop instead of chocolate chips.  Semi-sweet chocolate is great, so is a dark chocolate.  Chocolate chips are tasty, but the chunks of chocolate make these even better.  Chop your chocolate into chunks.  A serrated knife works best for this!

Here's one way that shortbread is different than regular cookies.  You want chilled not softened butter.  While you're chopping, cut your butter into small pieces.  We find that you can cut it and then chill it again before baking for optimal results.

Mix the butter, vanilla and sugars together in your mixer bowl until light and fluffy.  Then add the flour and mix until it looks crumbly.  This is NOT going to come together like a traditional chocolate chip cookie.  It will look kind of sandy but will clump together when you squeeze it in your palm.

Add in your chocolate chunks.  Hopefully, you don't have a preschool-aged sous chef who secretly eats so much of it that you have to chop some more...

Split the dough into two parts.  Spread out some plastic wrap and place one half of the dough on it.  Work it into a log shape.  Then do the same with the other half.  Once you've got your logs, chill them in the fridge for at least two hours.

Once chilled, preheat your oven to 350 degrees then slice the dough with a serrated knife into 1/2 inch pieces.  If you want to get fancy, brush the edges with beaten egg and roll in sanding sugar before slicing.  We didn't have sanding sugar and they still turned out great, so go figure.

Then sprinkle on the salt and bake for 12-15 minutes until the edges are golden brown.  Cool them on the tray for a minute or two and then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

There you have it!  They're like next level chocolate chip cookies!  The only challenge we had was that the dough can be a bit on the crumbly side, which makes slicing challenging.  We only had this happen one of the two times, so maybe that's reasonable?  We're not exactly shortbread experts so we don't know exactly why it happened.  Too long of a chill time?  Not long enough?  Overmixing?  Undermining?  If you know--let us know!  However, they were tasty enough that we will definitely try again.

Try them and let us know what you think!  Happy Baking!