Polovornes

A Cuban shortbread cookie made for holidays and special occasions. This is a very old recipe and in its original form was made with lard. This makes about 6 dozen.

Ingredients

16 tablespoons (2 sticks) plus 2 teaspoons of unsalted butter softened.'
1/2 cup of confectioners sugar plus more for rolling
2 1/2 cups flour (sift before measuring, I used cake flour)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla (I used a little more because I like a stronger vanilla taste)
Cream the 2 sticks of butter with the sugar until it is lemon colored.

Directions

Beat in flour, salt, and vanilla making stiff dough.
Refrigerate dough until chilled.

Preheat the oven to 4000 and grease cookie sheet with remaining butter.

Roll dough into 1-inch balls and place them on the cookie sheet.

With a spoon, press down a bit on each cookie. I rolled the dough into different shapes to have a variety of shapes.

Bake for 14 minutes or until the cookies are lightly golden.
As soon as you remove from oven, roll cookies in confectioner's sugar and set them on a wire rack. When they are cool, roll them in sugar again. I used the sifter, as the cookies are very fragile and if handled they make crumble.

Serve at room temperature.