My grandparents came over from Scotland in the early 20th century and settled down in Pittsburgh where my father arrived on the scene. My mother got this shortbread recipe from my grandmother, so we consider it "authentic". Having grown up with this thicker, softer, and far crumblier shortbread, I find commercial shortbreads tend to be too solid, even crunchy, but I suppose they have to be so they can survive shipment.
As with most of my recipes, this is simple to put together, but it is a bit of a hassle to press into the pan, and it takes a long time (over an hour) to bake. Also, do not expect perfect looking results: after all these years, I still always get many "irregular" pieces in any give batch. But I think it is worth it.
It takes some work to get the shortbread out of the pan in clean pieces, but I find I generally do OK by letting it cool in the pan for 10 minutes or so and then inverting it onto a cooling rack. Don't worry about breaking it into individual servings until well cooled. In fact, we typically wrap and store it in large chunks and only break it into individual squares when we eat it. My mother used to make specific cuts deeper than others to facilitate this approach, but I have to admit I never mastered the technique myself.
Makes about 64 squares.
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