Brown Sugar (No Pecan) Shortbread Cookies

It really bugged me how unsuccessful my baking weekend was turning out to be... golden brioche disasters, two tries on the blondies before I got them right and then my dark brown sugar shortbreads were not up to snuff. I took my lazy butt to the store to buy light brown sugar so I could try these again.

In the book, Dorie tells you to sing the word "sandy" in your head as you are mixing these together because the whole point is you don't want to work the dough too much and you want it to be very sand-like when it's done. While I didn't sing (maybe I should have) I really tried to make sure I worked with a quickness.

The dough seemed to turn out better. I put it in the fridge for about 3 hours and then decided to give it a try. Or if I'm being honest I was being impatient and wanted to go relax upstairs, watch Big Brother and read my book. I digress...

So, I laid them out on the tray and they certainly looked more like shortbread. I left the dough a little thicker this time and it was way less sticky than the dark brown sugar version so I thought I might have had a shot.

The recipe calls for 18-20 minutes but I baked these for about 16 and they were already starting to brown so I took them out.

While these are miles better than the first version they are still not right. They are not keeping their shape.
I searched the internet hoping I would find people who had similar issues and what they did to fix them. I learned two things:

Dorie has a shortbread cookie recipe from last year (this book came out in 2006) on her website and she tells you to put the dough in the freezer for an hour. This makes so much more sense to me as the refrigerated dough was just too soft. In the time it was taking me to cut it and put it on the baking sheet it was already losing its shape. The second thing I learned was a girl mentioned how much trouble she was having with hers and she figured out she was overmixing the butter and brown sugar in the first step which was allowing the butter to be light and airy instead of just smooth and creamy.

Again this is why I'm doing this. I followed the instructions... beat the butter and brown sugar for 3 minutes. Pretty sure it really only needs half that time. Refrigerate for 2 hours or more. I think it needs to be frozen for at least an hour.

So I'll try again and hopefully find the outcome I am looking for. While at times it can be frustrating that I am doing things incorrectly or I think I'm doing it right and it stills comes out wrong I am having a really great time with this. I'm already feeling more confident in my abilities. Maybe not as a baker but for sure as a problem solver.