Baking a good shortbread crust is a total essential for my catering work, and for the love of baking dessert at home. With the perfect ratios of butter, flour, and sugar, we create a cherished flavor, with a soft bite and overall strength to withstand anything we want it to hold.

millionaire bars, using shortbread crust

Shortbread never gets old, even though it has been made for centuries. It creates confidence in baking because it’s very versatile for pies, bars and tarts, or roll out cookies. It is not overly-sweet. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t enjoy it. You can make memories all year long with this crust.

This recipe typically uses traditional all-purpose flour, but it can be made with alternatives for an end result that you’ll love if gluten free and/or vegan. Shortbread is always made free of eggs and rising-agents. It obviously tastes outstanding on its own, but here we are just working it out to make a crust-bottom.

shortbread crust

Mili Takashima

This recipe is the every day basic for making classic, vegan, and/or gluten free shortbread crust, as a base for any variety of bars, tarts and pies.

I recommend using using this recipe for one small 8"x8" pan, or doubling this for pie pans or larger sheet pans when making bars.

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Ingredients

1/2 cup butter – cut into pats and melted 8 tablespoons or 1 stick. If switching out with vegan butter, you may need to add 1/4 cup additional flour
1 and 1/4 cup all purpose flour You can switch out for 1:1 ratio gluten free flour for best results.
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Cut the butter into pats and place in a bowl for melting. It should be mostly-melted, with mostly liquid and some very soft pat pieces. You can melt using the microwave at 30 seconds at a time, or a double broiler method over a stove top.
To the butter, add the sugar, salt pure vanilla extract. Stir to combine.
Pour this mixture on top of the measured flour.
Combine everything together. It will be a bit crumbly but is easy to bring together.
Prepare a baking pan or surface with parchment paper. Pour the shortbread dough and form it evenly to the bottom. Use a inverted spatula and apply pressure so that it's smooth and even.
The shortbread will want to rise up and distort from being level while baking. To avoid this, poke holes evenly and throughout the top of the shortbread, using a toothpick or fork
Bake for 10-15 minutes so that there is a golden color at the corners and at the bottom. A little more or less time will be needed, depending on how thick or thin you lay down the crust. Allow to cool before adding filling or topping. Cut with a sharp knife and serve.