Brown Butter Shortbread - it doesn't get much better than this

Alright, so this week's bake and take to work is the legendary brown butter shortbread. Ted Lasso may have made it famous, but some of us have secretly been scarfing it long before that.

Alas, there isn’t a good heart-friendly option here. The plant-butter alternatives are iffy. So I always use a slab of good old dairy butter as the starting point. Salted Kerrygold is my go-to, but any high quality butter will work. Trust me, it’s worth the extra dollar. Fifteen minutes in a stainless steel pan over a low-medium heat will give up that irresistible toffee aroma as the milk solids caramelize. From there, it’s just like any other shortbread, quite simple.?

This was the first time I’d made gluten free and it actually came out better. More melt-in-the-mouth, but the same incredibly moreish flavor. Not sure if that was the flour, or maybe I just didn’t pack it into the stone so tightly. It travels well, so it’s a great option for sharing with coworkers. I've packed it into a tub with some parchment paper, put it in my backpack, walked across Boston for half-an-hour to Enel North America , and it survived just fine. Didn’t survive long once I opened the tub though... Somebody brazenly took the last piece before I'd had any - it was that good!

Next week we have a birthday to celebrate. Chocolate cake obviously. But I think I might pair it with brown butter ice cream which I haven’t made before.