My First Baking Attempt on Shortbread Cookies + Royal Icing Marbling Technique

Hello to all aspiring bakers and sweety pies out there! Today, I'm going to share to you my first on-hand experience baking a shorbread cookie. I tried JoyofBaking's (Stephanie Jaworski) shortbread recipe but I was disappointed by her recipe because when I put the dough on the fridge for about 2 hours, my dough became very very hard like a rock. I followed all the ingredients and instructions she stated on her website but mine didn't turned out very well but thank God! I found myself a remedy. I thought I was gonna throw all that dough. What I did to rescue that super rock solid dough is, I waited for a few minutes for the dough to softened by massaging it using my hand. The dough slowly softened and I gradually add some flour to the dough so it will become pliable and prevent it from sticking on my hands. As to my own observation, I think her shortbread recipe lacked more flour. I added almost 1 1/2 cups of flour to the original recipe before I'm able to manage it without it sticking to my hands. Remember, do not add the flour all the way through because you cannot control how much your dough needed to become pliable. If you put more flour also to your dough, what would happen is, your cookie will be so dry and cracks will start to appear. This is only based on my own experience. I'm so glad my brain worked out that I need to add more flour to it or if it didn't, I would've wasted everything. It's also my first time to finally use the marbling technique in royal icing. I really wanted to try this technique ever since. But I can't find a good recipe for the cookies to use it for.
Next time, I will try Martha Stewart's Sugar Cookie Recipe. Anyway, the recipes and photos of my cookies are posted below. 

Shortbread Cookie Recipe

Ingredients: 

3 cups (260 grams) all-purpose flour + 1/2 cup for dusting 

1/4 teaspoon (2 grams) salt

1 cup (2 sticks) (226 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup (60 grams) powdered (confectioners or icing) sugar

1 teaspoon (4 grams) pure vanilla extract 

Directions:

1. Use electric whisk to cream the butter, icing sugar (sifted), vanilla extract.
2. Mix together 3 cups All Purpose flour and salt in a separate bowl (both sifted).
3. Combine all the ingredients and wrap the dough with a cellophane clinging wrap and refrigerate for 1 to 3 hours. 
4. After 1 or 3 hours, roll out the dough and use the remaining flour for dusting the surface. Roll out until 1/4 thick inch is achieved. Use cookie cutter to cut desired shapes for your cookies.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F or 177 degrees C. Line the pan with wax paper and place the unbaked cookies on the sheet.
6. Bake for 15 minutes or until your cookie sides turns out golden brown. Rotate the pan every 5 minutes to bake the sides evenly.
7. Cool down the cookies and serve with or without frosting.
8. This recipe will yield 30 medium size cookies.

Royal Icing Recipe

Ingredients: 

1 large egg (egg white only) 

2 or more cups of Confectioners sugar (sifted)

Directions:

Beat the egg white using an electric whisk. Wait for the egg whites to become stiff before you gradually add the icing sugar. For piping the cookies, you need a stiff consistency. To cover the cookies, you will need a soft, almost liquid like consistency also known as "flooding technique".  Just add confectioners sugar if your icing is watery and add a drop of water or milk if icing is too stiff. Always cover your bowl with a damp towel because royal icing dries and hardens fast. 

Marbling & Flooding Technique:

You need to do the flooding technique first before you can apply the marbling technique. You need a thin royal icing consistency for the flooding and a thicker consistency for the marbling technique. Here's a good video tutorial to help you understand.

1. Here's the video to watch for to know the consistency of your royal icing.

2. This is the flooding technique before you can do your marbling method

3. Marbling Technique. It's very easy right?