Here’s a fun little recipe that came together out of my pantry and fridge leftovers! I wanted to make a Napoleon-esque dessert out of shortbread, but I didn’t want it to be cloyingly sweet. The key to keeping things balanced here was a secret ingredient in the whipped cream: creme fraiche! I had some leftover from my birthday brunch and didn’t want to let it go to waste, so into the whipped cream it went! The result is a slightly tangy counterpart to the sweet cookies and fruit.
Shortbread is really quite easy to make. I originally looked at the chocolate sablé recipe on Smitten Kitchen, but I was afraid that the natural cocoa powder that I had in the pantry would throw a wrench in things (the recipe explicitly states that you should use Dutch-processed and not natural). Instead I turned to Mimi Thorisson’s beautiful blog, Manger, and adapted the cookie recipe from a tart crust recipe.

I actually don’t own cookie cutters, so these cookies got their pretty scalloped edges from a ravioli cutter! I completely free-styled the size of the cookies — no measuring to get perfectly identical rectangles here! If that’s important to you, feel free to get out your protractor.

Whether you eat these cookies plain with your cup of coffee or tea, or stack ’em up with cream and fruit, it’s a simple and quick dessert option that you may be able to pull off without a trip to the grocery store!

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Chocolate Shortbread Towers

Ingredients

Shortbread Cookies

• 1¾ cup (210g) plain flour
• 1 cup (100g) confectioner’s sugar
• ¼ cup (25g) cocoa powder
• A pinch of fine salt
• ½ cup (120g) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whipped Cream

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 T sugar
• 1/4 cup creme fraiche

Fruit

• 1 cup assorted fruits, cut (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc.)
• 2 T sugar

Instructions

Shortbread Cookies

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F

Sift together the flour, confectioner’s sugar, cocoa powder, and salt.

Using your hands, incorporate the cold butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture feels like wet sand.

Add the yolks and vanilla. Mix until a dough forms — do not overwork.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to 1/4 inch thin.

Cut into cookies with a wheel cutter or cookie cutters. Place cookies onto a parchment lined baking sheet and refrigerate for 15 minutes before baking.

Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes. The cookies will seem soft when you take them out of the oven, but this is fine — let them cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet out of the oven before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Re-roll and cut the scraps until all dough has been used.

Whipped Cream

Pour cold heavy cream into a chilled metal bowl and whisk vigorously. When it begins to thicken, add the sugar. Continue whisking and add the creme fraiche. Whipped cream is ready when it holds a soft peak.

Fruit

Sprinkle sugar over the fruit. Toss to coat. Let fruit break down slightly in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Assembly

Choose three similarly sized cookies. Lay down the first cookie, top with whipped cream and a few pieces of fruit. Stack the next cookie and repeat until you have three layers.

Shortbread recipe based on Mimi Thorisson’s Blood Orange Chocolate Tartlets recipe