Peanut Butter Shortbreads

These peanut butter shortbread cookies strip everything down to four ingredients: butter, sugar, creamy peanut butter, and flour. No eggs, no leavening, no vanilla. Just the pure, sandy crumble of butter shortbread with a warm peanut butter flavor baked through every wedge.

The dough comes together with your fingers, pinching and pressing until the mixture looks like coarse meal. That crumbly texture is the point. Shortbread isn’t supposed to be smooth and elastic like cookie dough. You press it into an ungreased pan, prick it with fork tines to mark the wedges, and bake low and slow at 300°F (150°C) for an hour.

The low oven temperature is what gives shortbread its trademark texture: dry, sandy, and crumbly rather than chewy or cakey. The fork marks aren’t just decorative. They help steam escape during the long bake and create natural breaking lines for cutting clean wedges.

Kitchen Tips

• Cut the wedges while the shortbread is still warm. Once cooled, it shatters instead of cutting cleanly.
• Use creamy peanut butter, not chunky. Chunky peanut butter disrupts the smooth, even crumb.
• Don’t grease the pan. Shortbread has enough butter in the dough to prevent sticking.
• The shortbread should be “very lightly browned” when done. Any darker and it tastes burnt.

Variations

• Press a crosshatch pattern with the fork tines for a classic shortbread look.
• Dip cooled wedges halfway into melted chocolate for a chocolate-peanut butter combo.
• Add a pinch of flaky sea salt on top before baking for a sweet-salty contrast.