This is a great cookie to bring on hunting trips or when you're hiking, because they will keep for days. You really get a sense of the acorn flavor here, and the maple and vanilla play a strong backup. Feel free to sub in some other flour for the acorns if you don't have any. It's very important to work with icy cold dough here, or else the cookies will flatten. They'll still taste great, but won't be very shortbread-y.
2sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature(8 ounces)
1/2cupsugar
1/4cupmaple sugar
1/2teaspoonvanilla extract
A pinch of salt
1cupall-purpose or King Arthur's "white whole wheat" flour
1cupacorn flour
Instructions
Put the butter in a large bowl and add the sugars. Use a fork or spoon to mix them together until well combined. Add the vanilla extract.
In another bowl, mix the salt and the flours with a whisk until combined. Pour the flour mixture into the bowl with the butter and sugar and mix well with the fork or spoon. The dough will come together quickly, but will be sticky. Don't overwork it, but be sure you don't have hidden blobs of butter in your dough.
Shape the dough into a disk, cover with plastic wrap and set in the freezer about 2 hours, and up to overnight in the fridge. The dough must be very cold for this to work, or the cookies will collapse.
When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F. Flatten the disk of dough to about 1/2 inch thick and cut into cookies. I used a 2-inch cutter, but any sort of cutter would do. An acorn-shaped one would be cute. Keep soing this, reshaping the dough, until you've used it all.
Arrange the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet and bake for 23 to 26 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies just begin to brown.