Chocolate Dipped Chocolate Chip Shortbread Fingers

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, at room temperature
2 cups flour
1 cup semisweet miniature chocolate chips*, divided use
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
pinch salt

Directions:
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Beat the butter, salt, sugar and vanilla until smooth and fluffy. Add in the flour, one cup at a time, until a dough forms. Fold in 1/2 cup the chips. Preheat oven to 350. Cover and refrigerate the dough until firm, about 20 minutes. Then, working quickly, shape heaping tablespoons of dough into 3 inch by 1/2 inch thick logs by rubbing them between your hands. If the log breaks, fold it over and roll again. If the dough in the bowl gets too soft to handle as you work, refrigerate it until it is firm again. Place cookies on the lined cookie sheets about 1/4 inch apart. Bake 8-10 minutes or until the bottoms are golden brown. Remove to wire rack to cool. Slide the the same parchment paper under the racks. While they are cooling, melt the chips over low heat in a small, heavy pot. Stir to incorporate any unmelted chips. Immediately dip 1/4 of the cookies into the melted chocolate. Return to wire rack until the chocolate is set, about 20 minutes. Store in a single layer in an air tight container.


Yield: about 3 dozen cookies




*Use regular sized chips if you must, but they are really too big and bulky for this recipe.

My thoughts:

This is a recipe I got from my mom. I tweaked it a bit to make the directions it clearer but it is still the same basic recipe we made when I was younger at Christmastime. I don't generally make such rich cookies (2 sticks of butter!) but these are really good, so I made an exception. I always thought of them as rather fiddly little cookies but they are actually dead easy. I think the downtime is what bothered me but it really isn't too bad and the ease of making the cookies more than makes up for it. There is no need to temper the chocolate, and no egg or leavening. These are a good, crisp shortbread without being too crumbly and the chocolate really makes them special.