Shamrock Shortbread

I've been making this shortbread for 20 years now. Well, the non-green and non-shamrock version, anyway. I'm not sure where my mom picked up the recipe, but it has been a family favorite for as long as I can remember. In fact, it won the big, colorful "best of show" ribbon in the Polk County Fair back when I was 10 or 11. Ah, good times.

So in light of good ol' St. Patrick's Day, I wanted to do something "Irish" for dessert. Since I wasn't really in the mood for Irish Brownies, I decided to make shortbread into shamrocks. I must warn you, these cookies are ridiculously easy to make, and even easier to eat. Not like that nasty "shortbread" stuff that you can buy in the bakery department of your grocery story. These are melt-in-your-mouth amazing.

Diana's Shortbread

1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup corn starch
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups butter, very soft

Sift together powdered sugar, corn starch and flour. Blend in butter. Shape, and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten shaped dough slightly. Bake at 300 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes until slightly golden.

*To make shamrocks: Add some green food coloring to your dough before you bake it. Then make dough into balls about a half inch in diameter, arrange, stick a little blob where the stem should be, and the smush them together a bit with a spoon, being careful to maintain the shamrock-y shape. Then bake, and enjoy!