Salted Pistachio Shortbread

Dispatches from the low-tech front: Total success! Ground the pistachios using a combination of mortar and pestle & pounding them with a hammer inside a plastic bag. Mixed batter using two forks/hands, baked on a cookie sheet with foil. Later, I easily pulled the triangles apart, and they were amazing! Crunchy and buttery and just sweet enough. Moral: do not let the lack of a food processor, false-bottomed tart pan, or other ephemera get in the way of your shortbread dreams. Happy holidays!

What size springform pan?

Alison: Great recipe! Would this dough hold up if I rolled it out and cut out individual cookies? I love pistachios and would like to make Holiday shaped cookies.

I am going to attempt a low-tech version of this (don't have a food processor either, and although I do own a blender, cleaning it is the thief of joy), and will report back.

Outstanding. Mixed the dough using a KitchenAid mixer with paddle and baked in a tart ring on parchment paper. Added crushed seeds of one green cardamom pod and a splash of vanilla extract. Keep an eye out during baking as it was ready in 15 min.

This is a difficult recipe. It gives no guidance on size of pan. I used a 9" tart pan; an 8" might have worked better. Also, the recipe directs that you slice the cookies into 24 wedges (slivers, really); the photo on the site shows the cookies sliced into 12 wedges (far more manageable and less likely to crumble. If I make these again I think I'd use an 8X8 pan and cut them into squares or thin rectangles. I did save the crumbs and crumbled wedges to put on vanilla ice cream.

Just made this in a 9” pan and it worked out great.

I made these as cookies at 325 (and added plenty cardamom!) on the bottom rack on my second try at 12ish minutes and they were absolutely perfect. my first try at 350 they burned on an upper rack at 15 minutes!

Cold or room-temp butter? I automatically used room temperature butter, as I do in most baking recipes. When it was too late (I was pressing the dough into the tart pan) I remembered that an old shortbread recipe calls for cold butter. It still tastes good, but should I try it with cold butter?

This will become my favorite shortbread recipe. I used a 10 inch tart pan reducing the cooking time so as not to dry out the shortbread. With the thinner cookie I cut into 16 pieces. I used a combination of almonds and salted pistachios, reducing the salt by a third in step three and as the topping eliminating the salt at the end. End product was delicious with a cup of tea.

Avoid a tart pan in favor of a springform pan if possible. The scalloping started to crumble when removing from the pan, and kept crumbling as I cut such small pieces.

I used room-temp butter, Trader Joe's toasted slivered almonds and doubled the recipe, baking in a parchment-lined 9x13 Pyrex. I cut them into squares while still warm, in the pan, then let them cool all of the way before bringing them to my bookclub cookie exchange. Not even 2 hours from ingredients on counter to placing them on the table -- remarkable. And really good. If rolled, did you roll in confectioner's sugar and then sprinkle with salt before baking? That might be pretty

The standard size for both is 9” (I just measured mine to be certain). If you don’t have either, a round 9” cake pan might work, but definitely line the bottom with parchment paper and run a butter knife around the edge after its cooked before trying to turn out. If not, you’ll ruin the shape trying to get it out.

These were a resounding success! I didn't even have the right pistachios (I had roasted and salted) but I halved the salt in the dough and used only a tiny bit of flaky salt on top. I baked them at 325 degrees for 22 mins and they were perfect. They got firmer as the day progressed so making them a day in advance might lead to the perfect texture.

Baked two tart pans of these back to back. Very tasty shortbread. Recipe worked as written. The dough is quite wet so the hardest part was spreading in the tart pan. We used a piece of wax paper to pat in and move around to even level. When you remove from the oven they are very soft. I cut/scored them lightly and then fully cut when a bit firmer/cooler. No issues with cutting or transporting across state lines. Not a very sweet shortbread but very tasty.