Biscoff Shortbread Bars

Biscoff Shortbread Bars - made September 30, 2021 from Homemade Italian Cooking

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup confectioners' sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 14.1-ounce jar cookie butter

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a 9 x 9-inch baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, on medium-high speed, cream together butter, granulated sugar and confectioners' sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add vanilla extract and flour; mix on low speed until a soft dough forms. Do not overbeat.
3. With your hands, press half of the dough into the prepared pan. Wrap the remaining dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until needed. Bake the bottom crust for 12 minutes, until puffy and just starting to color. 
4. Remove from oven and let cool for 15 minutes. Once cooled, spread the cookie butter evenly over the bottom crust. With your hands, crumble the remaining dough over the top of the entire cookie butter layer. Bake for 20-25 minutes until puffy, lightly golden and slightly firm to the touch.
5. Let cool then chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or overnight before removing from pan.

Since it's fall now and hopefully cooler temps are also prevailing in the Middle East where most of my care packages for deployed military service members end up going, I thought it was safe to send these (all butter) shortbread bars without worrying that the 2-3 week mailing time was going to spoil the butter since (presumably) they're not experiencing triple digit temps.

The bottom crust can be pushed into place with your fingers and that's what the first picture shows. I'm not a fan of fingerprints on baked goods, even if you literally won't be able to see it in the finished product so I used a small roller (pictured below) to make a more even crust. Yeah, probably a bit picky of me but that's how I - haha - roll.

I took one liberty with the original recipe and added broken pieces of Biscoff cookies over the cookie butter layer for a bit of added crunch and contrasting texture to the shortbread and cookie butter. Not to mention to amp up the Biscoff flavor because you can never have too much cookie butter, in whatever form.

The shortbread doesn't really spread much so you want to pinch off small pieces to spread them around the top layer. I couldn't completely cover the top but that's okay as it doesn't hurt the Biscoff cookies or the cookie butter to be slightly exposed.

I only ate a sliver for a taste test but these seemed like they turned out pretty well. Butter shortbread and cookie butter are always a good combination, amped up by the Biscoff cookies in the middle. You can omit them if you wish but I liked having them in the middle.