Shortbreads

Whew, it's been a long time since I last blogged about baking. I've been meaning to, but a combination of assignments/thesis writing and laziness have kept me away......

These shortbreads date from last fall, the first being cranberry shortbreads baked in October 2016. I made the dough into a long log that I attempted to keep fairly rectangular in cross-section, then sliced the dough into individual cookies after chilling. This does avoid the monotony that can come from rolling out the dough and cutting it into shapes. The down side is the shapes are more limited, as the dough is really soft prior to chilling.

It's been so long I can't quite remember why I baked to begin with, but I think it may have been to give to my dad's colleagues at the hospital...

Next are some peanut butter chip shortbreads, and some candied orange ones.

These were baked in November, for a get-together with my cousin L and a friend S. Last semester, we got together a lot to eat a quick dinner then spend the time working on our respective theses. I had felt like baking I recall, so these came to be.

The recipe for all the shortbreads is the same as these ones that I have made several times already. I just swapped out the filling.

Lime and Lemon Shortbreads

The end of another short (and unofficial) internship meant another batch of cookies to deliver. I especially wanted to thank the doctor I was shadowing at the time, so I stamped a handful of these cookies with a "Thank You" message with a heart~

I was half tempted to make cranberry shortbreads again, but decided to opt for something different. Part of my motivation for this was that I did not want to deal with creaming butter and sugar. Therefore, I flipped through my "La Grande Imprimerie Gourmande" recipe book, which is full of various shortbread recipes, from the sweet to the savory.

I came across this citrus shortbread recipe that didn't seem like it would be too much trouble. In fact, the only problem was that there was no lemon or lime at home! A quick trip to the grocery store at the end of the road, and that was remedied with 4 untreated lemons and some limes.

I made a single batch of these, intending to make more. However, a shortage of time caught me, and I only managed the one. However, it was sufficient for the doctor and the nurses of the department. Unfortunately, one did not like lemon, so she did not eat any, but I could not have predicted that.

I made a small package with the portion for the doctor, and then put the rest in a small box to leave on the table of the nurses' room. Ingredients lists were stuck on, and a small blue flower.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 small lemon
• 1 lime
• 200 g unsalted butter, softened
• 300 g flour
• 100 g powdered sugar
• 1 pinch of salt

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 150˚C.
2. Zest the lemon and the lime. Juice them in separate bowls.
3. In a mixing bowl, mix the flour, sugar, salt, and zests.
4. Add 1 tsp lime juice, and 1 tbs lemon juice, then the butter.
5. Mix by hand until the dough comes together, without overmixing.
6. Form a ball, and cover it in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 1 hour.
7. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to about 1 cm thickness.
8. Cut out desired shapes, and bake for 20 minutes.
9. Let cool and enjoy.

Lime Pistachio Shortbread Cookies

December 18, 2015

A friend had requested that I bake something for her (anything was fine). I also needed more cookies to give away as there was not enough mint chocolate cookies. This time I was extremely fed up with studying for exams, so I figured I could go and deal with a lime.

This recipe is adapted from Cooking Channel, although I did not use cardamom. I chopped the pistachio into stick-like slivers instead of crushing them or putting them through a blender.

I glazed them with the same lime glaze I have used before. As a last minute decoration, I slivered some lime zests and dropped them on top. The squares I had originally scored in the dough were a little big, so instead of re-drawing the lines, I split each in half to get triangles. I think these were the most fragile shortbreads I have made.

These were also packaged into little bags to give away, and served as snacks to go with tea for an end-of-semester get-together with friends.

Lime Glazed Cranberry Shortbread Cookies

Remember these cranberry shortbread cookies I made last summer? Well I made them again, this time for a friend's birthday gift. I wasn't really up for rolling out the dough, however, so the dough was rolled into a log, then refrigerated. I then sliced the log into fairly irregular (I don't have much experience in cooking log cutting) slices, then baked them. Since I only made half a batch, my log was short enough that I could wrap it in cling film, and tie one end to the rack in the fridge, so that the surfaces didn't leave any flat side to my log.

Just like for the oatmeal cookies, I soaked the dried up cranberries in a bit of hot water before chopping them and throwing them into the mix. Instead of leaving them plain, I made a quick glaze with some icing sugar and lime juice, which I spread on half of the top surface of each cookie. The recipe for this glaze was from Cakecrumbs. The cookie recipe can be found in the link above.

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LIME GLAZE

  Ingredients

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tbs lime juice

  Procedure

1. Mix together sugar and lime into a paste in a heat-proof bowl.
2. Set the bowl into a pot of simmering water and heat until mix is runny.
3. Glaze cookies, and let dry.

Cranberry Shortbread Cookies

I have been meaning to make cookies to give to the people in the department at the hospital in which I had worked for a month, a few years back. One of them recently found an internship for me, so I wanted it to double as thanks for him, too.

Instead of doing plain butter and sugar cookies, I decided it was time to try another recipe from my shortbread cookies and crackers recipe book. I had received this book for Christmas last year, from a cousin.

I had some dried cranberries laying around (my aunt usually brings a huge bag from the US every time she comes here, as she knows many people here like them). Thus, I ended up with cranberry shortbread cookies.

These were quite easy to make, although the 1-hour waiting time was kind of bothersome, as it was 1 am by the time I could stick them in the oven. I think the most bothersome part of this recipe is that, when cutting out shapes, my cookie cutter sometimes cut through a cranberry. If I was not careful, the cranberry would rip the cookie, thus ruining the shape.

I had planned to take progress pictures, but as soon as my hands got involved in mixing the flour into the butter mix, it was impossible to handle my camera. Maybe next time! I packaged these in little transparent plastic bags to give out.

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CRANBERRY SHORBREAD RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 50 g dried cranberries, roughly chopped
• 40 g icing sugar
• 150 g unsalted, softened butter
• 200 g flour
• 1/3 tsp salt

  Procedure

1. Whisk together butter and sugar until creamy.
2. Add in flour, salt, and cranberries, and mix by hand until the dough is homogeneous and supple.
3. On a floured working surface, roll out the dough to obtain a thickness of about 5 mm. Cut out shapes, and put them on a baking sheet covered with a piece of baking paper, or a silicone mat.
4. Refrigerate for one hour
5. Preheat oven 180°C.
6. Bake for 15 minutes. Let cool.

Milk Tart (Melktert)

Long ago, I saw a recipe from Cakecrumbs for a milk tart, a cinnamon-flavored South African custard tart. Initially, it was the appearance of it that drew me -- that, and the word "cinnamon." The custard itself, however, required quite a few eggs that I know, from experience, would not work with just egg replacer. Google helped me to find a vegan alternative.

First, I settled with making a shortbread crust, which I put into my mini tart pans, and baked until golden. This time, instead of standing around rubbing the butter into the flour, I attempted to pulse it a few times in a blender with a chopper blade attachment, and finished the rest by cutting with two knives. It made for more dishes to wash, but resulted in a much shorter pastry, and less mess on my own fingers.

Then came the time to make the filling. I looked in my various ingredients and baking equipment boxes, convinced that I had a bag of cinnamon sticks laying around. The one time I wanted to use one, and it turns out I left them at home. Silly me. Cinnamon powder would have to do.

Simmering soy milk with the cinnamon, I added a slurry made with some more soy milk and cornstarch. Once cooled a little, I filled in my tarts, then left them set in the fridge. It actually took two days to stop jiggling. Then the whole surface was dusted in a mix of icing sugar and cinnamon.

Since I had some excess custard, I filled little dessert jars for extra nomming.

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MILK TART RECIPE (for approximately 6 mini tarts)

  Ingredients

     Shorbread Crust

• 250 g (2 cups) flour
• 150 g (10.5 tbs) butter, diced
• 25 g (2 tbs) unrefined sugar
• 2 tbs cold water
• a pinch of salt

     Custard Filling

• 2.5 cups soymilk
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder or cinnamon stick
• 3 tbs cornstarch
• sugar, to taste

     Dusting

• 1 tbs icing sugar
• 1 tbs cinnamon powder

  Procedure

     Shortbread Crust

1. Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl.
2. In a blender with chopper blade, pulse flour mix with butter until a breadcrumb consistency is obtained.
3. Add water progressively until the dough comes together into a ball.
4. Refrigerate 30 mins before rolling out.
5. Preheat oven 180°C.
6. Roll out to desired thickness, and line pans with the dough.
7. Using a fork, poke holes all over the surface of the dough.
8. Bake for 15-30 minutes, or until golden.

     Custard Filling

1. In a pot, mix 2 cups of soymilk with cinnamon, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer to infuse cinnamon.
2. Make a slurry out of the cornstarch and the remaining soymilk.
3. Progressively add slurry to the hot soymilk, whisking constantly.
4. Add sugar to taste, and continue cooking until thickened.

     Assembly

1. Pour custard filling into the tart shells.
2. Let cool then refrigerate overnight.
3. Dust with a mix of cinnamon and icing sugar.

  Tips and Comments

• You can use any other milk. I just used soymilk because that is what I had at hand.
• I ran out of cornstarch halfway through, so I subbed the rest with 3 times the volume in wheat flour. This requires longer cooking for it to thicken, however.
• This recipe is for approximately 6 mini tarts, although I am not sure about how much filling it would make. I made 3 mini tarts with 1/2 of the crust recipe, and used about 2 cups of soymilk overall to fill my 3 tarts and two little glass pots.
• If you have leftovers, put them in various recipients (jars, glass pots, etc.), and refrigerate to make little custards.

Coconut Shortbread Cookies

I believe I mentioned before that I got an awesome cookie stamping set along with a cookbook. The cookbook is full of shortbread cookies and cracker recipes.

I thought it was time for me to tackle one, with some of the ingredients I had on hand.

Due to having some shredded coconut left, I decided to make some coconut shortbread cookies! I personally thought they were kind of on the dry side, and not as good as some I've made in the past, but I liked experimenting. I used egg-replacer instead of the egg yolks in the recipe.

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COCONUT SHORTBREAD COOKIES RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 2 tsp egg replacer
• 2 tbs water
• 100 g softened butter
• 200 g flour
• 70 g sugar
• 50 g coconut powder
• 1 pack vanilla sugar
• 2 pinches of salt

  Procedure

1. Mix sugar and flour. Add the coconut, vanilla sugar, and salt.
2. Mix egg replacer and water. Add to the mix.
3. Add in butter
4. Let the dough rest 1 hour.
5. Roll out the dough into a 5 mm thickness.
6. Cut shapes out of the dough.
7. Bake for 15 minutes at 190°C.