Love on a Plate: Lynne’s Snickerdoodle Shortbread Bars

I work in a church office that shares a campus with a middle,  an elementary and a preschool. On any given school day, there are about five hundred kids running around.

Outside my office window is the preschool playground; all day long I hear giggles and shouts…and sometimes wails of anguish when somebody rolls a tricycle over somebody else’s toe.

The preschool/daycare here is amazing for many reasons, not the least of which is that they cook for the kids EVERY. DAY. Healthy, yummy lunches like Cowboy Soup and Chicken Pot Pie. From scratch. My good friend Lynne runs the party in the kitchen, and there is nothing better than walking through the auditorium adjacent the kitchen, colliding with the smell of bread rising, or chicken grilling, or cookies baking. (And then there are the days when she serves broccoli. A great, versatile veggie but from across the auditorium it smells a great deal like smelly socks.)

Not infrequently, she brings a plate of piping hot lovely over to the church office to share. Yesterday, I followed my nose to the origin of cinnamon and sugar and love and found her taking pans of her own invention “Snickerdoodle Shortbread” out of the oven. Heaven, on a plate.

I mentioned it on Facebook and a few asked for the recipe, so here you go, courtesy of Lynne, the Preschool Chef.

Barbara Bush’s Shortbread Bars
From Better Homes & Gardens Christmas Cookie magazine 2004

2 cups flour, sifted
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup softened butter
3/4 cup sifted powder sugar
Colored sugar for top, (I use cinnamon & sugar)

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt
Beat butter on med for 30 seconds. Add powdered sugar and mix well. Add flour mixture and mix well.

Press dough into 8×8 pan, prick top with fork, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes until just lightly brown. Cool, cut and enjoy!