Showing posts with label shortbread. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shortbread. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Cheddar Chive Shortbread #CreativeCookieExchange

Cheddar chive shortbread is buttery, savory and crisp when first out of the oven, the perfect accompaniment to your afternoon tea or evening cocktail time. 

Shortbread is a traditionally sweet treat but since the main ingredients are flour and butter, I figure there’s no good reason it can’t be savory as well. This month’s Creative Cookie Exchange theme is cheese so I thought it was a great time to test my theory. I am pleased to report that while it feels funny calling these cookies, shortbread is definitely considered a cookie, so here we are. And they are delicious! They are rich and buttery, with a lovely hint of heat from the black pepper and cayenne. They can stand up to a strong drink as well a good cup of tea.

Ingredients
1/2 cup or 113g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
8 oz or 225g extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated
2 tablespoons finely minced chives or green onion tops
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
Pinches paprika to decorate, optional

Method
In your electric mixer, beat together your butter, salt, black pepper and cayenne until you have a smooth paste.



Add in the cheese, flour and chives and mix at low speed until they form a soft dough.



Shape the dough into roll, wrap in plastic wrap or waxed paper, and chill 30 minutes.



Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and line your baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.

Unwrap the roll and slice the shortbread into circles about 1/4 in or 1/2cm thick. Place on your prepared baking sheets leaving space around for them to spread. I put mine a bit close together thinking I might fit them all on one pan and ended up needing a second pan for the balance of six cookies. Learn from my errors and just space them more evenly on two pans to start with.



Sprinkle on a little paprika to decorate, if desired. You can use cayenne or black pepper instead but I was afraid mine might be too spicy for my taste testers.


Bake the shortbread until lightly golden and beginning to brown on edges, about 10-12 mins.

I decided that I didn’t like the rough edges for a civilized teatime treat with Manzanilla sherry so I cut them out with a glass to even the edges. This is a totally unnecessarily step, but they do look nicer, don’t they? And we loved the little toasted crumbs that were left behind.



Enjoy!



Check out all the other lovely cheesy cookies my Creative Cookie Exchange friends have made. Many thanks to Renee of Magnolia Days for doing all the behind the scenes work this month!


Creative Cookie Exchange is hosted by Laura of The Spiced Life. We get together once a month to bake cookies with a common theme or ingredient so Creative Cookie Exchange is a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts at The Spiced Life). We post the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

Pin it! 

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Posted by at 5:08:00 AM 0 comments
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Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Egyptian Date Crescents #CreativeCookieExchange

These melt-in-your-mouth shortbread crescents are filled with sweet and sticky dates then covered in powdered sugar. 

My Creative Cookie Exchange group is celebrating spring around the world today, with recipes for Easter, Purim, Passover and more. Searching online for cookie recipes is often a rabbit hole of no return, but I managed come back this time with these Egyptian date crescents that the author said she and her mother always made for her father for Easter.  In fact, Easter is celebrated in a big way in Egypt, which surprised me when we lived in Cairo. The Coptic Christians are a minority, but they are a very vocal and visible influence in life there, where they live side by side, for the most part quite peaceably, with their Muslim neighbors.

Adapted from What She’s Having.

Ingredients - makes 2 dozen cookies
7 oz or 200g whole dates
2 cups or 250g flour
1 cup or 225g  butter at room temp, cut into pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup or 60ml cold milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup or 94g powdered sugar

Method
In a small bowl, cover the dates with hot but not boiling water and set aside.

Using a pastry blender to combine the butter and flour and salt until they form large crumbles and there are no large pieces of butter.

Add the vanilla to the milk. Then add the milk to the butter and flour.



Stir until well combined. The dough is going to be quite sticky. If you live in a warm climate, wrap in cling film and leave to rest in the refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes. Don’t leave it too long or the butter will stiffen up and the dough will no longer be pliable.

Drain the dates and remove the pits and any little stemmy bits on the one end.

Use a sharp knife to chop the dates finely. Use the edge of the knife to make a square out of the date paste and cut it into 24 pieces.



Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C and prepare two cookie sheets by lining them with baking parchment or silicone liners.

Cut the dough into 24 squares.


Taking one square at a time, form it into a ball.



Press the center of the ball down to create an indent and press it out into an oval. Place one piece of the dates into the middle.






Close the dough up over the dates.



Roll the dough gently between your hand to lengthen it. Bend into a crescent.



Place on your prepared cookie sheet.



Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the bottom of the cookies are just golden. Let cool completely.


Roll in icing sugar.



Enjoy!




Check out all the lovely spring cookies we are sharing today!


Creative Cookie Exchange is hosted by Laura of The Spiced Life, this month with technical assistance from Anshie of Spiceroots. We get together once a month to bake cookies with a common theme or ingredient so Creative Cookie Exchange is a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts at The Spiced Life). We post the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

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Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Pineapple Macadamia Nut Shortbread #CreativeCookieExchange

Candied pineapple and macadamia nuts bring a little tropical flair to traditional, rich buttery shortbread.

This month my Creative Cookie Exchange friends are channeling the tropics to bring you cookies that remind us of sun and surf and swaying palms trees. And I got to reminiscing about a long ago holiday to Hawaii.

When I was still in school and my father moved to southeast Asia, he used to book tickets for my sisters and me to visit him from Texas. No one flew that far in one go at the time so there were several stops. Often one of the layovers was in Hawaii so we’d break up the trip by staying a few days on Waikiki. One year I was going to be traveling on my own so I twisted a friend’s arm (hard task, right?) to come with me. Her father worked for Delta so her ticket was heavily discounted and since Daddy was already paying for the hotel room, all she needed was spending money. We had the best time, hanging out on the beach and soaking up the sun together.

I’ll tell you honestly that while we ate our share of pineapple there, both at breakfast time and perched on tropical cocktails, I don’t recall trying a macadamia nut until years later. Nevertheless both pineapples and macadamias have become synonymous with Hawaii. And they go beautifully together in buttery shortbread.

Adapted from Recipe.com

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups or 315g all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed or 65g brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup or 227g cold butter
1/4 cup finely chopped or 30g macadamia nuts
1/4 cup finely chopped or 50g candied pineapple

Method
Preheat your oven to 325°F or 163°C and prepare a 8 x 8 in or 20 x 20cm pan by lining it completely with baking parchment. I also use a little non-stick spray just to help it stay in place.

Chop your pineapple and nuts into small pieces.



In a large mixing bowl, combine your flour, brown sugar and salt.

Cut the cold butter into pieces and add them to the mixing bowl. Use a pastry blender to cut in the butter, until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.



Stir in the chopped candied pineapple and nuts. Use your fingers to break up the bits of pineapple so they aren’t all stuck together.



Pour the mixture into your prepared pan and level it out with a spatula or spoon.

Use your hands to press and flatten the mixture as thin as you can manage.



Use a sharp knife to score the top of the shortbread. If it crumbles as you try to score it, press it down again, even more firmly. You can poke 'em with a fork if you want to also. That seems traditional for shortbread.



Bake in your preheated oven for about 18-22 minutes or until the edges are starting to turn golden.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the pan for just a few minutes on a wire rack. While the it's still quite warm, use the sharp knife to cut right through the shortbread where you scored it.

Allow to cool completely before removing the shortbread cookies from the pan.

These are melt in your mouth good.


Enjoy!

Check out all the other tropical cookies from my fellow Creative Cookie Exchange bakers this month:


Creative Cookie Exchange is hosted by Laura of The Spiced Life, this month with technical assistance from Renee of Magnolia Days. We get together once a month to bake cookies with a common theme or ingredient so Creative Cookie Exchange is a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts at The Spiced Life). We post the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

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Posted by at 2:18:00 AM 0 comments
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Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Coconut Rum Celebration Cookies #CreativeCookieExchange


These buttery shortbread cookies are flavored with fresh grated coconut and golden rum, then drizzled with rum glaze and more coconut. When the wind is whipping around you and it’s cold as cold can be outside, pour yourself a cup of steaming hot tea and bite into this luxuriously rich cookie.

This month’s Creative Cookie Exchange theme is Comfort Cookies and we were supposed to create a favorite cookie for someone in our lives. But this week I am feeling especially generous since my mom and mother-in-law arrive on Thursday to help me celebrate my own birthday on Friday. So this cookie is for ALL of you in the North Hemisphere who might be experiencing freezing temperatures and unpleasantly moist conditions. As the rich shortbread crumbles between your chattering teeth, the rum and coconut should evoke a beach vacation where you can imagine cabana boys serving fruity drinks under palm trees swaying gently in the tropical breeze, with the warm sunshine working its way to your chilled bones. If you want to add a tot of rum to your hot lemon tea to go along with, no one will judge you.

This recipe is adapted from one on The Café Sucré Farine.

Ingredients 
You could use desiccated coconut but don't use
the sweetened stuff. 

For the cookie dough:
1 cup or 225g butter, room temperature
3/4 cup or 95g powdered or icing sugar
1 1/3 cups or 165g flour
1/2 cup or 40g freshly grated coconut plus a little extra for decorating, if desired
1/2 cup or 75g cornstarch
2 teaspoons golden or dark rum
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the glaze:
1 cup powdered or icing sugar
1 tablespoon golden or dark rum
1-2 teaspoons milk
Pinch salt

For decoration: freshly grated coconut, pearl nonpareils http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpareils  or shiny sprinkles

Method
Preheat your oven to 325°F or °C and prepare your 8x8in or 20x20cm baking pan by lining it with parchment paper.

In the bowl of your stand mixer or with handheld beaters, beat the butter briefly until it is smooth, then add the powdered sugar and beat again for about one minute.

Add in the flour, cornstarch, coconut, rum and salt and beat until just mixed.

Yay! I remembered the flour this time! 
Tip the dough into your prepared pan and cover it with cling film. Use your hands to spread out the dough evenly in the pan, making sure to get all the way into the corners.



Remove the cling film and draw lines on the dough with a sharp knife where you plan to cut the cookies apart.



Bake in your preheated oven about 18-22 minutes or until lightly golden on the sides but still pale on top.



Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes.

Transfer the parchment with cookies to a cutting board and carefully cut them apart while still warm, using a very large knife that will let you cut the whole way, or almost the whole way across, with one downward motion. These cookies, like all shortbread, are crumbly so you don’t want to break them while sawing at them.



Make the glaze by mixing the powdered sugar and rum with the pinch of salt. Add the milk a little at a time, stirring well between, until you get a good dripping consistency, then stop. You may not need all the milk.


Once the cookies are cool, separate them slightly on the parchment paper and drizzle the glaze back and forth over them till it’s all used.



Sprinkle them immediately with a little extra grated coconut and a couple of teaspoons of shiny decorations, if desired.



Allow the glaze to set before trying to move them or stack them.



Enjoy!



Do you need some comfort cookies? We've got something for everyone and even one for Man's Best Friend! Who would you bake a comfort cookie for?




Creative Cookie Exchange is a great group of bloggers who love to bake cookies. We get together once a month (the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month) to post cookie recipes with a common theme or ingredient.

If you are a blogger and want to join in the fun, contact Laura at thespicedlife AT gmail DOT com and she will get you added to our Facebook group, where we discuss our cookies and share links.

You can also just use us as a great resource for cookie recipes--be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts (you can find all of them here at The Spiced Life).


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