perfect shortbread.



One of my favorite things to do with my time (besides baking of course) is thrift store shopping. Although Portland thrift shops can be rather picked over when it comes to cool vintage clothing and kitschy household items, there is usually a ton of fabulous kitchen supplies for very low prices. While perusing one of my favorite neighborhood shops the other day, I came across some very adorable individual baking molds that I just couldn't resist, especially since they were marked half off, making my wallet only $2 short.

The next morning I sat in the kitchen trying to figure out what I should do with them. At first I decided to make madeleines and even started making the batter, but then I thought that the spongy consistency wouldn't hold the design of the molds. So I started over and went for a basic shortbread (oh, how I love shortbread with afternoon tea). I crossed my fingers after the little tins came out of the oven and was relieved to see that the small pineapple marking actually showed up quite nicely. What's next for these cute little pans? I'm sure I'll think of something.





Sweet and Perfect Shortbread

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing
1/3 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon rose water (optional)
1 cup all-purpose flour

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.. Prepare a 9-inch round or square cake pan (or shortbread mold) by greasing it with butter.

Cream butter in an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the confectioners' sugar, vanilla and optional rose water. At low speed of mixer, begin adding flour slowly (mixture will be thick). Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface, and knead until thoroughly mixed. You should have a smooth, stiff dough. Press the dough into the prepared pan or shortbread mold, and prick entire surface with fork.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. It should be nice and golden. Cool for 10 minutes, then loosen edges with knife and invert pan onto cutting board. Shortbread may be coaxed out by tapping edge of pan.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Delicious Dried Plum Dessert for Autumn

Image
Two years ago in October everyone's favourite Parisian-American foodblogger, David Lebovitz , hosted a one-off Prune Blogging Thursday that resulted in a number of recipes using the humble wrinkled prune , aka dried plum. I submitted a recipe for healthy prune cake , which tasted much better than it looked. However, this time I've got a dried plum dessert recipe that both tastes good and looks good . The recipe is adapted from an Estonian cookbook " Kohupiima- ja kodujuusturaamat " (100 Rooga) and yields 6 small portions. I've garnished mine with sweet pomegranate seeds , but you can use lavender or lemon balm or simply dust the dessert with icing sugar. If you cannot find curd cheese (a popular ingredient here in Estonia), then ricotta or even cottage cheese (press through the sieve) would probably work as well. This would make a nice Christmas dessert - just in case you're already imagining the Christmas menu in your head :) Dried Plum and Curd Cheese Desse...
Read more

layered brownies.

Image
After the spice explosion of Thanksgiving (cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves, oh my!), all I could think about on Monday was something rich and chocolatey. Searching through my pantry, I was dissapointed to find nothing but a tiny bit of cocoa powder and some chocolate syrup. I was quite close to giving up and baking something else when I came across a recipe in an old christmas cookie magazine for brownies using chocolate syrup instead of regular melted chocolate. Hoorah! I was saved. The original recipe for these used a combination of chocolate and peppermint flavoring, but halfway through making them, I sadly found that I had no more mint extract. Instead, I mixed in some caramel extract into the cream mixture, which seemed to turn out just fine. I am sure a lot of different extracts and flavorings would work nicely: cherry extract, Kahlua, Amaretto, coconut flavoring, etcetera. Be on the lookout though. The spices will be back shortly. It's holiday time! Layered Brownies: recipe ...
Read more

Moist, moister, moistest: rhubarb muffins

Image
Photo updated in May 2009 We are still enjoying the rhubarb bounty . Here's a recipe for really moist rhubarb muffins that I made twice last week. Firstly, they were served at a 'girly' housewarming/ birthday party last Thursday, attended by all my aunties (that's three maternal and one paternal), my parents (my dad was unable to attend the 'real' birthday party on a previous weekend), as well as some of my first cousins (not all 11 though:). Instead of birthday cake , I made lots of these rhubarb muffins that day, served as a pyramid on a cake stand. Very pretty!! But in the midst of all the buzz and excitement, we forgot to take a picture. Not that it mattered much, as it gave me a good excuse to make these very same muffins again on Sunday. These muffins, let me tell you, are the moistest muffins you'll make. They're so moist, that even if you eat them on the following day, they taste like they're freshly baked. Delicious! Rhubarb muffins ( Rab...
Read more