The Scottish dinner needed a Scottish dessert, so I dug out my ancient shortbread recipe, along with a gift from Julie in Montana (you can read about her family’s exploits HERE).  Check out this cookie cutter!  You can call it a fiddle, a bass or a cello.  Or even a viola!  I preferred to go with “fiddle”, because I love my fiddles.

Here’s the recipe:

SHORTBREAD COOKIES

1 cup butter
3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups sifted flour
1/2 tsp salt

Cream butter, powdered sugar and vanilla until fluffy.  Gently stir in flour mixed with salt.  Chill for at least 20 minutes.  Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Roll dough 3/8″ thick on a floured board.  Bake cookies on an ungreased baking sheet for 20-25 minutes, until dry but not brown.

You can dip these in chocolate (melt 6 oz chocolate with 1 tsp shortening) and refrigerate to harden.  I’ve frosted them with pink frosting for Valentine’s Day (when the children were little and a heart-shaped cookie was the most exciting thing they’d ever seen).   I drizzled a powdered sugar glaze on these because they didn’t look pretty enough by themselves. 

Here’s one of my favorite Scottish fiddle songs, Neil Gow’s Lament for his Second Wife. Enjoy.