The Store-Bought Shortbread Cookie We'll Always Leave On The Shelves

Desserts can be crazy and over-the-top these days, from milkshakes piled high with cakes and cookies to s'mores sandwiches to liquid chocolate eaten directly off your hands. It's nice to go back to basics and enjoy a simple but well-made treat such as Scottish shortbread. Making it well on your own requires some decent technique though, so it's often better to buy your favorites at the store. Only, there are several store-bought shortbread cookies that aren't well-made. 

In a taste test of 10 kinds of cookies, Daily Meal found that the worst store-bought shortbread cookie was Pepperidge Farm's Dublin Shortbread. This was a bit of a surprise considering the high quality of Pepperidge Farm's other cookies, especially its nearly 70-year-old fan favorite Milano cookies. However, the combination of strong caramel and toffee flavors, which aren't typical of shortbread, a texture that's not sandy enough, and a lack of moisture were too much to overcome.

Of the three reasons why you should leave the Dublin shortbreads on the shelf, its strong flavors, or lack thereof, make the biggest impact. While it's normal to add flavors to shortbread, especially lemon, vanilla, and pecan, a good recipe should still have butteriness as a primary flavor. While we disliked its mostly caramel and toffee flavor, others left reviews saying they tasted like artificial sugar or stale despite being ahead of their "best by" date and noted that they didn't taste like real butter.

Plus, there are still the issues of its texture and moisture levels. When you bite into great shortbread, you should face a crunchy exterior that quickly gives way to a soft, sandy interior. We thought the Dublin shortbread's texture was almost where it needed to be with a nice mouthfeel to it, but it lacked the moistness that separates the best shortbreads from the worst. We also found several reviews saying the cookies were overcooked or burned, or that they were too hard.

With the wealth of shortbread cookies available at grocery stores, it's no surprise that there are more cookies worth avoiding than worth trying. The difference in quality between store brands is particularly wide. Benton's Pecan Shortbread Cookies, sold at Aldi, are too dry, crumbly, and bland, for example, while Target's Favorite Day Butter Shortbread Cookie Bites have been described as tasting of "synthetic sugar" or sugar cubes while having little to no buttery flavor. On the flip side, you have Whole Foods' 365 Butter Shortbread cookies with a good balance of butter and sugar, though some found them hard and grainy, and Walmart's Great Value Lemon-Dipped Shortbread Cookies with a not-too-strong lemony flavor, though they also struggled with the same hardness and texture issues.

Broader available cookies typically fare better than store brands, excluding Pepperidge Farm's disappointment. Our favorites come from Walkers and Lorna Doone. Both are exactly what a shortbread cookie should be, though we thought the Lorna Doone's have a slightly stronger flavor and love that they're bagged in individual servings.