Favorite Shortbread Cookies with Mini Chocolate Chips

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There’s a strange story around the derivation of this recipe. My mom used to make them, origin unknown. And they quickly became my youngest’s favorite cookie. Lighter than a typical chocolate chip cookie, these are more like shortbread, with their heavy butter content. Regardless, we never really know whose recipe it was so we called it “Mom’s.”

I made these yesterday to mail to my youngest. He’d just moved to a new apartment and I like to send move-in treats. As I was adding the powdered sugar to the butter, I glanced at the back of the sugar bag. There was a recipe for “Chocolate Chip Teacakes.” Their ingredients were exactly the same as those in this recipe.

Long story short

So, I’m going to give credit where credit’s due, assuming this recipe did originally come from Crystal Sugar. I’m also going to provide you with Crystal Sugar’s exact recipe, which has slightly less sugar (ironically!). But I will also provide you with our spin on one stage of these. The Crystal Sugar bag says to roll these into balls and place on a cookie sheet. You’ll see from the image, above, ours are flattened. I like ours better.

But the real reason I’ll provide Crystal Sugar’s recipe is it makes half as many. And trust me, you’ll thank me here. My mom’s recipe makes so many you feel obliged to eat stacks of them. And while they may taste “light,” one look at the ingredients and you’ll see that’s more an illusion than a reality.

Crystal Sugar

Regardless of whose recipe this actually is, these are amazingly delicious, lightly sweet, shortbread-y, and fabulous with a cup of tea or coffee. But they’ll also do in a pinch for breakfast, midnight snack. You get the picture. Enjoy!

These are the best sheet pans, especially because the removable grid makes a great cooling rack!