Viennese Shortbread

A recipe from cooking-ez.com

For 15 pieces, you will need:

• 1 160 g butter
• 2 50 g icing sugar
• 3 10 g vanilla sugar
• 4 220 g flour
• 5 2 pinches fine (or table) salt
• 6 30 g egg white
• 7 100 g dark chocolate
• Total weight: 570 grams

Times:

Preparation	Resting	Cooking	Start to finish
35 min.	2 hours	30 min.	3 hours 5 min.

Step by step recipe

• 1:

  Preparation of the dough

  In a small bowl, pour 160 g butter cut into small pieces.
  If the butter is cold (it comes out of the fridge), let it soften at room temperature for at least 1 hour.
• 2: Sift 50 g icing sugar over butter, then add 10 g vanilla sugar.
• 3: Mix with a wooden spatula until smooth.
• 4: Add 220 g flour, 2 pinches fine (or table) salt and 30 g egg white.
• 5: Mix until you have a smooth dough.
  You can do this with a spatula again, or simply by hand, which is very quick.
  Preheat your oven to 180°C (360°F).
• 6: Put the dough in a pastry bag lined with a fluted tip.
• 7:

  Piping and baking

  Pipe the dough onto a sheet of baking paper on a baking sheet in any shape or size you like.
  If you have trouble because the dough is too hard, pop the piping bag into the microwave for a few seconds, or hold it between your hands, to soften it.
  
• 8: Bake for about 30 minutes, be careful not to overcook them, the shortbread should remain soft.
• 9: Let cool on a wire rack.
  Set aside the baking sheet and the paper.
• 10:

  Chocolate topping

  Melt in a bain-marie or microwave oven 100 g dark chocolate.
  I recommend using a small container with high sides, in this case a simple jam jar, it will be much easier to dip the cookies.
• 11: Dip the end, or ends, of each cookie into the melted chocolate.
• 12: Place them on the baking sheet, do this for all the shortbread and then put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
• 13: Your Viennese shortbread is ready.

Remarks

If your shortbread flattens out after baking, as in this photo, it's probably because you used a little too much butter.

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