Recipe: Potato Chip-Chip Shortbread
Despite their name, you don't really taste the potato chips. Still, bet you can't eat just one.
This quirky shortbread cookie contains the unusual addition of finely crushed potato chips, along with chocolate chips and the expected butter, sugar, flour. Some of the potato chips are mixed into the dough; the dough is rolled on top of more chips and for the crispy-salty finish, crushed potato chips are pressed atop the cookies. Crazy, no? Yet quite wonderful.
Despite what you might think, you really don’t taste the potato chips. Instead, they add to the crispy, buttery, only slightly salty character of the cookie. Lay’s Classic are the preferred brand because they’re crisp, thin and salty. Don’t even think about breaking out the pickle-flavored or barbecue chips.
These clever cookies come from a new book by Shauna Sever called “Midwest Made: Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland.” Given my Midwest roots, the recipe was a must-try.
I had my husband get a large but not gigantic bag of chips. I weighed out 190 grams on my digital scale, tipped them into a zip-top freezer bag and finely crushed them a rolling pin to get the measured two cups. Then my husband came into the kitchen looking for chips to accompany his lunch. Only a few remained in the bag and I’d only eaten one. Okay, maybe three.
An eight-ounce bag of chips looks like a lot until it’s crushed. One hundred and ninety grams is nearly the whole bag. So if you don’t have a digital scale, put almost all the chips in a zip-top bag and roll them fine. Then measure them to get your two cups crushed. Few chips will be left for snacking. But here will be cookies.
Potato Chip-Chip Shortbread
Makes about 4 dozen cookies.
Adapted from “Midwest Made: Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland” by Shauna Sever (Running Press, 2019).
8 ounces (16 tablespoons) European-style unsalted butter, at room temperature (I used unsalted Land ‘O Lakes)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned into cups and leveled off
2 cups (190 grams) finely crushed salted potato chips (measured after crushing)
1 cup semisweet or dark chocolate chips
1 large egg
1 tablespoon water
Few pinches granulated sugar
1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper
2. In an electric mixer, beat the butter, vanilla and salt on medium-high speed until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the brown and confectioners’ sugar and continue to beat until very fluffy, about 2 more minutes.
3. Scrape down the bowl well and add the flour. Mix on low speed until a smooth dough forms. (Note: if your kitchen is very warm as mine was and the batter seems soft, pop the bowl of batter and the paddle in the fridge for about 20 minutes. Then continue with the recipe.)
4. On low speed, mix in 1 cup of the crushed potato chips and the chocolate chips.
5. To form the cookies, sprinkle about ½ cup of the remaining potato chips onto a work surface in a small area, about 10 x 12 inches. Turn the dough out onto the crushed potato chips and pat it into a rough rectangle. Cover the surface of the dough with parchment paper or plastic wrap. Roll the rectangle to a ½-inch thickness, about 7 x 11 inches. Remove the parchment or plastic wrap.
6. In a small cup, with a fork, beat the egg with the water and granulated sugar until smooth. Brush the surface of the dough lightly with the egg wash then scatter over the remaining crushed potato chips. Lightly roll over the dough with a rolling pin to encourage the chips to adhere.
7. Use a bench scraper or large sharp knife, guided by a ruler, to cut the rectangle into 4 dozen 1 ¼-inch squares.
8. Transfer the cookies to the prepared baking sheets with a bench scraper or small offset spatula, setting them about 1 inch apart.
9. Bake 1 sheet at a time until set and golden in color, about 13 minutes. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring them to wire racks to cool completely – they will crisp as they cool. Store in an airtight container for 3 to 4 days, if they last that long.
