Everyone has their own way. I learned to bake shortbread from my Scottish Grandmother and my Scottish Mom. They always chilled their dough so I follow in their tradition. I only chill the dough for shortbread, dough that has to be rolled and when I make pie crust. I make the melting moments or whipped shortbread recipe using cornstarch, icing sugar, flour and butter when I want something really soft but I prefer the crispier shortbread using rice flour and fine sugar. Either recipe, buttery shortbread sure does taste good. I watched an episode of Cooks Country or America's Test Kitchen and they used ground up rice krispies to make their shortbread crispier. I might try that if I ever run out of rice flour. I always have rice krispies on hand to make rice krispy squares

Mine are exactly 1/4 inch thick and are baked at 350 F. My husband made me two 1/4 inch sticks to use for rolling cookies; I put the dough on a floured surface, position the sticks on each side, roll with the rolling pin. the sticks act as guides for the thickness and so the cookies are perfect and uniform every time. I also watch carefully so the shortbread doesn't get too well cooked. My recipe says about 5 minutes at 350F but they are usually done a little bit sooner.

I recently made icebox cookies (the kind where you form the dough into logs and refrigerate before slicing and cooking). The recipe called for powdered sugar but I'd run out so I made them with granulated sugar. A few days later, I made a batch with powdered sugar. I couldn't tell the difference in the final product though perhaps there was some subtle difference that would have been noticeable with the two batches side by side. I found this in a Fine Cooking article on the effect of granulated sugar on cookies: "It also encourages spreading as the sugar melts. The proportion of sugar in most cookie dough recipes is so high that only about half of the sugar dissolves during mixing. During baking more of the sugar dissolves, which causes the dough to soften and spread." https://www.finecooking.com/article/the-science-of-baking-cookies-2 So it sounds like powdered sugar would be preferable when you want to retain the impression. Plllog - I think I have that same lion rampant cookie cutter in our Hanukah cookie cutter set.

lpinkmountain, yes I did. I found this recipe via Facebook! Here is the full original recipe: Oven at 325° 2 cups butter, softened 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar 4 - 4-1/2 cups A. P. Flour Pinch salt Cream butter, sugar & salt until fluffy. Add 3-3/4 cups flour, mix well. Turn out on floured surface, knead 5 minutes, adding enough of remaining flour to form soft dough (I always end up using all 4-1/2 cups.) Roll 1/2" thick, cut into 3" X 1" strips, prick with fork. Place strips about 1/2" apart on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets and bake until lightly browned, 20 - 25 minutes. Let sit on cookie sheet for a couple of minutes before removing to cooling racks. To make the maple walnut I added about 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract + 1 teaspoon maple extract and probably about 1/2 cup chopped walnuts to 1/2 of the dough when I started kneading. If you are going to make one full batch you can double the extracts & walnuts and add to the mixing bowl after adding the first round of flour and mix well. I have also found that the easiest way to cut the strips is with a pizza cutter. For some reason adding the nuts makes these a little more prone to breaking so be careful when removing to cooling racks. Enjoy!