Lemon Thyme Shortbread Cookies

To watch the premier of Downton Abbey, Season 3, we are gathering at Foodie's house...in our pajamas!  We’ll sip tea and hot toddies and what is a proper cup of English tea without a sweet little treat to enjoy with it.  So I made Lemon Thyme Shortbread Cookies for everyone to nibble on.

The basic shortbread recipe was contributed by a co-worker for my workplace Cookie Exchange but I gussied it up with Lemon Thyme that is – amazingly – still growing in my herb garden.  Regular thyme will work just as nicely, or rosemary.

Lemon Thyme Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients
 

1 cup of butter (I used Irish butter because Branson, the Irish Driver, now Sybil’s husband, is one of my favorite characters)
2 cups of flour
¾ cup of powdered sugar
½ teaspoon of sea salt
2 Tablespoons of chopped Lemon Thyme

Directions

• Cream the butter together with the powdered sugar using your hands.
• Add 1 cup of flour to the butter/sugar mixture and incorporate with your hands.
  
• Add the remaining flour, salt, lemon thyme and mix with your hand until a dough ball forms.



 

• Press the dough into an ungreased pan.  I used my 10x15 Pampered Chef pan.
• Prick dough with fork throughout.
• Put the dough in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
• Bake at 325° for 25-30 minutes.

 

• As soon as you take the shortbread out of the oven, cut into squares with a sharp knife.
• Leave in the pan for at least 30-45 minutes before removing with a small spatula.

These are so good!