Chocolate chip shortbread bars
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Delicious buttery, soft, chocolate chip shortbread bars, made with only six ingredients. An easy prep time of only 15 minutes, these bars are ready to eat within the hour for a delicious sugary chocolate hit.
A bake that is perfect for bake sales, storing in the freezer for when you want a treat, or even a go-to weekend bake with your kids – they are easy, simple and scrumptious.
Notes from The Patisserie
A simple recipe is often one of my favourites as I find it more accessible to any baker, no matter your skill level, but also… they are just easy to bake and easy to eat. My viral chocolate button shortbread cookie recipe has taken over, and you all want a traybake version.
The recipe is designed to be even easier than the cookie version due to being baked into one tin and portioned later on. More similar to my cookie bar recipes, it’s still a cookie, but there is no need to portion, scoop, roll or get as messy as rolling shortbread out onto a floured surface.
Only six simple ingredients, with 15 minutes prep time, up to 30 minutes bake time, and a little time to cool, for a delicious shortbread bar that can last over a week at room temperature (if it hasn’t already been eaten). The perfect get ahead bake that everyone will enjoy.
Ingredient notes and tips
As this recipe has only six ingredients, it is arguably very simple, but to get the best results you need to use the correct ingredients. Find the full recipe in the recipe card below:
- Butter – Whenever you are baking shortbread, I find it best to use unsalted block butter. If you prefer it less sweet, you can use salted butter. However, I would not recommend using a baking spread or margarine as it can soften the shortbread and have a different taste.
- Sugar – for a classic shortbread, in my opinion, it is always best to use caster sugar. Also know as baking sugar in other places, it has a finer grain than granulated and the perfect level of sweetness. You can swap to golden caster sugar easily
- Flour – plain/all-purpose flour is best as you do not want to use any raising agent in a shortbread. This can cause it to have a cake texture, which is not the best.
- Cornflour – This is the added extra ingredient that creates the best texture for your shortbread. Cornflour creates the classic crumble and softer crumb – it can easily be swapped for rice flour.
- Vanilla – this is optional, so you can easily make this a 5-ingredient recipe, but personally I love the addition of a thick vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract for a boost of flavour
- Chocolate – potentially the best bit for some people – the chocolate can be whatever chocolate you want. Chocolate buttons, chocolate chips, or even a chopped up bar of chocolate. The flavour is up to you, but I adore milk chocolate.
Baking the best shortbread bar
When a recipe is simple, it’s harder to get wrong, but there are still some tips that can be useful for the best bake. The full method for this recipe can be found in the recipe card below
- Baking in metal – I would always recommend using a metal tin to bake in, over a silicone mould or glass dish. Metal conducts heat completely differently, and creates a more even bake overall for the chocolate chip shortbread bars.
- Preheating the oven – all ovens can vary, drastically sometimes. If you find cooking easy, but baking harder in your oven, it’s often down to the temperature gauge or setting. Cooking is more forgiving but baking needs more exact science. These bars should be a light golden colour when finished baking in the timeframe. Try lowering the oven temperature if they are browning too quickly, or moving to a different spot in the oven (higher or lower)
- Mixing the dough – you can use a hand mixer, stand mixer, or even a bowl and a spoon – but some are easier than others. Creaming together the butter and sugar first is best to prevent any buttery lumps if the butter is too cold. The butter needs to be more towards room temperature to make this easier, but not completely soft or melted.
- Cooling the bars – it may sound silly, but if the bars are still slightly warm they will have softer more crumbly then you may like texture. Cooling the bars full in the tin helps them to ‘set’ and be better to portion later on
FAQs
You can use any chocolate you want – but generally I just buy a bar of chocolate and chop it up into smaller pieces as it’s cheaper and I prefer this.
Too much chocolate on top of the shortbread can catch in the heat of the oven and bubble/burn. If you want to decorate with chocolate, I would do this afterwards.
Definitely! You can flavour it with vanilla extract (I love the bean paste for the flecks of vanilla) that I use in the recipe, or you can add any other flavouring such as orange, lemon, or almond. You can also use a different flavour chocolate such as mint chocolate or chocolate orange to help flavour it.
Definitely! Half of the recipe will fit a 7″ square tin, and baking time will reduce quite heavily to more 15-20 minutes
No – you don’t. The shortbread base is delicious as it is – but reducing the chocolate will make the bars more shallow and bake quicker due to less overall weight of ingredients
Chocolate Chip Shortbread Bar Recipe
Ingredients
- 200 g unsalted butter
- 100 g caster sugar (plus extra for sprinkling)
- 225 g plain flour
- 75 g cornflour (or rice flour)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 150-300 g chocolate (chopped)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 160ºc fan and line a 9” square tin with parchment paper
- In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until combined.
- Add plain flour, cornflour and vanilla mix again – it will be crumbly
- Add the chocolate and mix through – I do this with a spoon/spatula
- Press firmly into the base of the lined tin – this can be easier with your hands, or the back of a spoon
- Sprinkle over a little extra caster sugar
- Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes
- Leave to cool to let the shortbread set
Notes
- This recipe will last for 1 week at room temperature, or in the fridge
- This recipe will freeze for 3+ months
- I use this 9″ square tin in my recipe
Storage + Freezing
Whilst this recipe is super quick to prep and bake, and simple in terms of ingredients, it is also a longer lasting traybake due to that simplicity.
These chocolate chunk shortbread bars can last for a week at room temperature, or in the fridge, in a Tupperware container, or cake box.
You can also freeze this traybake really easily – it will freeze whole, but I find it easier to portion first, and then freeze. It will last for 3+ months in the freezer
Something else tickling your fancy?
- Chocolate button shortbread – If you want to make a cookie version of this, make sure to check out this recipe. It’s a M&S dupe of their chocolate button shortbread cookies are delightful
- Millionaires shortbread – If you want to make something else shortbread themed, but with extra pizzaz, this recipe is your got to. A classic recipe.
- Chocolate orange shortbread – a delicious chocolatey alternative recipe that is perfect for the festive season, but also if you just really love chocolate orange like me