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.

Peanut Butter Chips, White Chocolate Chip Brown Sugar Cookies

American-themed hallway dinner? Due to a lack of time and inspiration, I decided I would make cookies. Easy right? I've made so many choc-chip cookies before, it would be easy!

Wrong.

I went and weighted my remaining half block of butter, and found out that I had less than 150 grams of butter. The recipe I usually use requires around 340 grams. I did not really want to end up with only 6 cookies, so I went to look for an alternative.

This recipe was the one I used. Since it uses oil instead of butter, I could use it safely even with my butter shortage. Instead of putting all the sugar, however, I did not put the 1/2 cup of granulated sugar (as I used some white chocolate chips, which are plenty sweet already). I also added more flour as I felt the dough was too wet and would spread too much while baking. The last adjustment made was that I used white chocolate chips and peanut butter chips (Reeses ones that a cousin brought me from the US).

The cookies are pretty much vegan, except for possibly the white chocolate chips~

These cookies were well liked by my hallway mates during dinner!