Old Fashioned Shortbread Cookies – Shortbread is one of my most treasured recipes, dear ones, and I’ve been making these buttery delights for more years than I care to count. There’s something so comforting about the simplicity and elegance of a proper shortbread cookie that just warms the heart.
What makes these cookies truly special is the combination of butter, cornstarch, and powdered sugar that creates that signature melt-in-your-mouth texture we all crave. The addition of pecans gives them a lovely nuttiness, and I’ve found that baking them low and slow at 300 degrees ensures they stay tender and golden rather than hard and crunchy.
These cookies are perfect for sharing with loved ones, whether it’s afternoon tea with a dear friend or tucked into a holiday tin for the neighbors. I remember making batches of these with my own mother in her kitchen, and now my grandchildren ask for them by name—there’s no sweeter reward than that.
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Old Fashioned Shortbread Cookies – Shortbread
Ingredients
- 1 cup All-Purpose Flour
- 0.5 cup Cornstarch
- 0.5 cup Powdered Sugar
- 1 cup Butter
- 1 cup Pecans
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees (150 C.).
- After you have sifted the flour, measure out 1 cup (225 ml), by spooning the flour into the 1 cup (225 ml) measuring cup and leveling it off with a knife.
- Then take the flour, cornstarch and powdered sugar and sift together into a large mixing bowl.
- Add the butter and take your hands, (clean hands), and mix it all together until it forms a ball.
- (Note: sometime I add a little more sifted flour to this mixture if it is real sticky) Then clean off your hands back into the mixing bowl getting as much of the mixture off of your hands and back into the bowl as you can.
- Then I cover the bowl and put it into the refrigerator and let it cool down again.
- Then when I am ready to bake, I cool my hands down and take and pinch off a piece of dough and roll it into about a 1 inch ball.
- Place the cookie ball onto an ungreased, cookie sheet or jelly roll pan.
- Place them about 2 inches apart.
- Then take a fork and flatten the dough balls.
- (Note: sometime I have to keep dipping the fork into flour to help keep the fork from sticking, and sometimes it still does.)
- Bake in the oven for about 20 to 22 minutes.
- Take them out and place on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes, then carefully take a spatula and remove them one by one onto another close woven cooling rack to finish cooling.
- Store in a air tight container.
