Beat the butter until smooth before adding in any other ingredient. This will ensure everything is incorporated evenly and you don't have big pieces of butter throughout your dough.








Do not over-mix the dough once you add the flour! Over-mixing develops the gluten in the flour and will make your shortbread very tough.
Freeze the dough for at least 30 minutes. If you are not baking all of the dough at once, be sure to keep them in the freezer until they are ready to be baked.




To grind up the fennel seeds, I used a mortar and pestle.