Easy Cinnamon Shortbread Squares

This recipe is one that I’ve been hounding my mom to share with me for a while. She used to make this for my brother and I when we were much younger and the recipe she scanned and sent me had the food splatter marks to prove its age. I do love regular shortbread cookies, don’t get me wrong, but they are usually so light and fluffy that they dissolve on the tongue in seconds and are gone. These shortbread squares have more of a brownie consistency, but with the buttery goodness of shortbread. I made the mistake of making this batch with no one else home during a day of little willpower and ended up eating the equivalent of a 1/4 cup butter over the time it takes to watch an episode of Glee. They are highly addictive. Word of advice: eat one or two and then bring the rest of the batch to work.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In a large bowl, measure all the ingredients except sugar and cinnamon. With mixer at medium beat ingredients until well-mixed.

3. Pat dough into 9″ x 9″ baking pan.

4. In a cup, mix sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over dough. Bake 30-35 minutes. Cut into bars while warm. Makes about 20 squares.