A delicate, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread for any occasion – but I have decided to categorize this as a “holiday” recipe because they are reminiscent of grandma’s whipped shortbread, the powdered sugar, of course, brings snow to mind, and they are simply divine with the use of a clementine where the recipe calls for an orange. I can’t say if I remember having these growing up, but I’ll definitely keep them in my holiday cookie rotation. They are a bit of a mashup of 2 of grandma’s recipes that were quite similar (see pictures below the recipe).

Ingredients

• 2 cups Earth balance
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• Juice of 1 medium orange
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp salt

Yield: 4 dozen cookies

Preheat oven to 350^o.

Cut Earth balance into smaller pieces and beat with an electric or stand mixer. Next, beat in the icing sugar, followed by the yolks and then the orange juice and vanilla. Continue beating for around 5 minutes, until the mixture is consistent and fluffy. Add the salt before the flour.

Sift in the flour, one cup at a time, gradually beating until a soft dough is formed. Form small patties and place on a lined baking sheet. Press with the bottom of a cup to achieve flat tops.

Bake for 25-30 minutes. While still warm, roll the cookies to liberally coat with icing sugar.

Variations:

• add ½ – 1 cup of chopped chocolate
• add 1/3 – ½ cup of blanched almonds, chopped