Cornmeal Lime Shortbread Fans Recipe (2024)

From Pooja: Tis the season... for cookies. These are @clarkbar's cornmeal lime shortbread fans but with a few edits: I used cornflour instead of cornmeal and added one egg yolk to give them a more sablé-like texture — sandy and crisp to the bite, tender to the chew.

Just made these cookies. I was careful to not over process the dough. Pricking the dough with a fork disrupted the dough so I used a skewer instead which worked out better. A toothpick might be even better. The cookies have excellent flavor and texture and look lovely as well.

These are easy and delicious. But I couldn’t get the fans out of the pie pan in one piece. Next time I’ll form the dough in a disc on a flat tray and bake with parchment paper.

Yes, a circle of parchment paper in the bottom of the tart pan helps the release. The cookies are *very* fragile. Cut them with a table knife after cooling 10 minutes. Applying the glaze while the cookies are still warm/hot makes the glaze translucent, which I think is pretty. The cookies are delish.

If you use a removable bottom tart pan, as I just did, and as the instructions call for, be sure to first put it inside of a baking sheet, else the melting butter will seep out all over your oven floor....

I used a circle of parchment in a 9” springform pan and got the disk out without any trouble. I used a sharp knife and cut it straight across into into quarters and then into twelfths.

I can't recommend freezing the cookies before cutting enough! I made these twice and the first they crumbled as soon as I got the knife halfway. The second attempt I froze the finished cookies for thirty minutes then let them sit for five and was able to cut them into 16 fans with no issue. If you're having trouble cutting give this a try!

These are not as easy as other short breads I’ve made. When I tried to use a fork to score it the mixture kept sticking to the fork. I ended up using a toothpick and poked fewer holes. I used an 11” tart pan with a removable bottom. I needed a very large knife to get them off the base. Forget using a regular pie pan, you’ll never get them out in one piece. I used good butter and fine polenta, which added a lovely crunch. I would make again using orange instead of lime and ground cardamom.

These were a hit! I've already made two which have disappeared! I did not have a tart pan, so I made the first batch in a glass pie dish and it was very difficult to turn out after cutting. So I hit the internet and found 9" tart pans on sale at JoAnns and picked one up. It cooked much better in the metal tart pan, was easy to remove and the wedges stayed together instead of breaking apart. Place the tart pan on a cookie sheet because there was some leakage of butter from the tart pan seam.

These are much thicker than I thought they would be based on the photo. The dough, which was extremely crumbly, filled up my 9 inch pie dish, making the cookie an inch+ deep. I was able to pull the full cookie out of the pie dish because i had put a square piece of parchment paper underneath the dough and used the ends to lift it out.

I think you definitely need a pan with removable sides to make this really work neatly. I'm also not terribly proficient with accurate cutting, so they just didn't look nearly as nice as I'd hoped! They do taste amazing, though. I used Meyer lemons instead of the lime because I'd bought a huge bag at ***co on impulse. Yum!

Excellent recipe though I had a bit of a problem getting it to come together - I ended up just pressing it into a big square, then cutting into square cookies before baking; separating them afterwards. I used orange zest and juice as I had no lime in the house. These cookies are so good they really don't need the icing. I'll be making many more of these cookies for Christmas and the rest of the year.

Definitely should have used corn flour rather than meal. I love the taste of corn (with butter!) so I felt the glaze took away from it. If I make this again I’d use corn flour, parchment, and maybe just some confectioners sugar and zest sprinkled on. I also thought the cornmeal tasted a bit raw, so hoping that would improve with corn flour. All this said, though I won’t give these away, they will get eaten!

Baked at altitude in Namibia. Taking the advice of others here, I added an egg yolk for added moisture, pricked with a tooth pick, and sliced with a bread knife 10 minutes after removing from the oven-- delicious!

I added 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne, which played off the sweetness perfectly!

Made a quadruple batch for my first time with this recipe. Followed it exactly as written and they turned out perfect! Followed the advice many gave to wait 10 minutes before cutting; worked great. Had zero problems with sticking to the pan or with crumbling - this may be because I used regular, cheap, non-stick, 9" pie tins. Loosened the full circumference of each tin with a butter knife as soon as they came out of the oven; that helped, too. These taste AMAZING. Highly recommend!!

I really liked this recipe. The fans are easy and quick to make, and they taste great. I did as one poster suggested and added and egg. It did indeed make the cookie more sablé-like. I used a 10-inch springform pan lined with parchment, and pressed the cookie to about a 1/2 inch depth. I cut the round into 12 pieces. The icing was fine, but next time I’ll add butter and lime juice to the icing to give it a bigger profile taste-wise and visually.

Read all the community notes and was a bit anxious going into baking these. They came out perfect! I used a removable bottom 9 inch tart pan, ended up using corn flour rather than fine cornmeal. I decided to glaze after a 10 minute cool down, rather than cut first then glaze. The glaze helped keep the top of the cut pieces from being more crumbly. I had no problem cutting with a sharp knife and given how rich they are, was able to cut into 24 fans rather than 12. Flavor + texture is awesome!

I didn’t find these had much taste. Don’t think I would make them again. Adding the glaze did help

Everyone raved about these cookies and requested more!

Made these today. They were tasty but crumbled with every bite man’s resulting in a Cookie Monster mess. I won’t make again.

Used 10” springform pan

These are fabulous and easy. The cornmeal adds a lovely texture and the lime is subtle but tasty.

Delightful! Making more this weekend. I didn’t have any problems with it being too crumbly to cut neatly or needing to add an egg yolk. I mixed by hand by softening the butter first (melt two tablespoons and pour over rest of the stick to soften) then mixing in the rest of the ingredients til well combined and ready to press into the tart pan. Might cut into 16 wedges next time for slightly smaller cookies to be served with a variety.

Love these! Used lemon instead of lime

These are fabulous. I did not add mint.

This was a big miss for us. The glaze was way too much. The cookies were just overly sweet and tart, kind of like eating a bad key lime pie.

Made these 2 years in a row, now. I LOVE shortbread and these are heavenly. I need to start doubling it now, so I can have some left for myself after Christmas is over.

Delicious, and simple. The cornmeal makes the texture more interesting than a traditional shortbread, and lime isn't often a flavour you get in holiday baking collections. Those factors combine to make something that will definitely liven up any holiday cookie spread!

I added a half teaspoon of powdered rosemary with the salt. Also, in the processing, I processed enough that the crumbs started stacking an inch or so high on the walls of the bowl and then stopped. It is a really dry pastry, but as the crumbs are compressed into the tart pan, it sticks together pretty well. Also, I used a wet toothpick to make the holes, pulling it out in between fingers pressed together and down on the pastry surface so it didn't flake off.