Argh! Put my shortbread pastry in the fridge last night to cook the next day and it's solid!

[MackerelOfFact]

I have to produce some baked goods for an event tomorrow. Last night I made some lavender shortbread pastry and some rose shortbread pastry, wrapped them up in clingfilm and stuck them in the fridge. The recipe said to chill before rolling out anyway so I figured it'd be alright in there until this evening, and might give a chance for the rose and lavender perfume to permeate the pastry a bit more.

Only thing is, this morning it is SOLID. Will it roll out or will I need to buy more ingredients on the way home and start again?

Mackerel, I think it is probably just a case of your fridge being very cold. If you leave them out in the coolest part of the kitchen for an hour, you should be OK. Good to then pop back into the fridge after lining your tray with it (after rolling) before cooking.

Just bring it to room temp. it should be fine

just leave it out for a bit, it is the fats in the dough that make it hard.
alternatively you can just cut the hard dough, that is what lazy me I usually do. I form a roll from the dough/pastry, wrap tightly in kling film, put in the fridge and then just cut slices and put on the baking tray. no faff with cookie cutters this way.

So it's ok to leave it to soften at room temp? I was worried that it would mess up the pastry if I did that, but that's reassuring. Phew. I read about putting the cut-out shapes in the fridge too, but the amount I'm making I'm not sure they'll all fit! But I will try, perhaps I can stack them on sheets of greaseproof paper.

yep it's ok. only if it has been frozen it will go very sticky. but from fridge is fine. good luck, the flavours sound yummy!

I just wanted to report back and say thank you, because they turned out great.

Even though my kitchen was about a billion degrees yesterday with the oven on, and I skipped putting the cut-out biscuits in the fridge again, the kept their shape and are lovely and light and crumbly still.

Glad it turned out okay. Can you tell me how to make the rose shortbread please?

I basically followed this recipe for both, but instead of using lavender sugar I used normal sugar and added 2 teaspoons of dried lavender/rose petals with the sugar and butter at the beginning. It says not to, but I did anyway!

There are probably better rose shortbread recipes about but I wanted to keep the biscuit recipe the same for both (and the shortbread is lovely). The rose is very subtle.

Thank you.