Shortbread, Three Ways

I actually made these cookies way back at the beginning of the semester, for a housewarming party my roommates and I had (we were super lucky with our senior year housing--and only had two cockroaches this year so far!)

My roommate Imani and I both have the same compulsive fear of underfeeding people and running out of food, so we made a huge batch of shortbread cookie dough (and then ran out last minute to buy chocolate and fruit, because we were convinced people would starve). One of the things I love most about shortbread (besides its wonderful buttery texture and flavor) is that it's so wonderfully adaptable. With minimal effort, you can transform a single batch of dough into a multitude of impressive cookie varieties. Which means, of course, that it's perfect for the holidays.  

 I used this dough to make some pretty classic jam sandwich cookies (which you've probably seen several. times. before), thumbprint cookies with a lemon twist, and traditional Scottish shortbread (well, not so traditional, because I added both egg and cornstarch).

This dough is delicious and so easy to put together. I rarely make a recipe multiple times, but this is one of my favorite go-to recipes. Unlike traditional shortbread or sable cookies, I added an egg yolk for extra softness and cornstarch to create a more tender dough. There are really just three tips for success:

1.  Be very thorough when beating together the butter and sugar. The sugar crystals aerate the butter, creating a more flaky and tender cookie.
2. However, once you add the flour, do not over-mix or over-knead. Add the dry ingredient, and mix until it barely comes together in a dough. Handling the dough to much will develop the gluten in the flour, which will create a very tough cookie. 
3. Make sure the dough is very cold when you put it in the oven. The temperature difference of the hot oven and the cold dough will help create a buttery shortbread.

These cookies make a perfect last-minute holiday dessert platter; you can make cookies that look dainty and unique and different from each other, all from one dough. In fact, looking at these pictures, I think I might whip up another batch tomorrow for Christmas...

Have a wonderful holiday season! 

With love,
Caroline and Monica

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Shortbread, Three Ways
Click here for the printer-friendly recipe

Basic Shortbread Dough

Yields: 1 batch, or about 18 cookies (Quadruple this to make all three cookie varieties)

Ingredients
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup plus 2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
⅛ teaspoon salt

Directions
Whisk together the butter and sugar until it is a very pale, light, and fluffy, about 5 minutes with an electric mixer, longer if you’re doing it by hand. Whisk in the egg yolk and vanilla. 

Fold in the cornstarch, flour, and salt until just combined. Do not over mix.

Chill the dough for at least one hour, or up to overnight.

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Scottish Shortbread

Yields: 24 large cookies, or 36 small cookies

Ingredients
2 batches of basic shortbread dough
2 tablespoon granulated sugar

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Divide the cookie dough into 6 equal pieces. Press the dough into 6 mini 4 ½ -inch tart pans. If you don’t have tart pans, pat the dough into rounds about 4 ½ inches in diameter on a cookie sheet.

Prick the dough with a fork, and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Cut each round into 4 equal pieces, or 6 pieces for smaller cookies. Chill for about 30 minutes.

Place the tart pans onto a cookie sheet, and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown around the edges.

Let cool and serve.

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Lemon Curd Thumbprint Cookies

Yields: about 18 cookies

Ingredients
1 batch shortbread dough
½ cup sunflower seeds (can be substituted with finely chopped nuts)
⅓ cup lemon curd (can be substituted with jam)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Pour the sunflower seeds into a small bowl or plate.

Roll the dough into 1 ½ - inch balls. Roll the dough balls in the sunflower seeds and placed onto a greased cookie sheet, or a cookie sheet lined with foil. Place the cookies about 2 inches apart.

Use your thumb to indent  the center of the cookie, make a well for the curd filling later.

Bake the cookies for 15-18 minutes, or until slightly golden around the edges. Let cool.

Place about 1 teaspoon of lemon curd into the center of each cookie.

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Jam Sandwich Cookies

Yields: about 12 cookies

Ingredients
1 batch shortbread dough
⅓ cup jam

Directions
Place the dough onto a sheet of parchment paper, and pat into a flat disk. Cover with another piece of parchment paper, and roll the dough with a rolling pin until about ⅛ inch thick.

Place the dough onto a cookie sheet, and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Preheat the oven to 350 F

Using an (approximately) 3-inch heart cookie cutter, cut out 24 hearts from the dough. With half of the cookies, use a mini heart cookie cutter to punch out the centers. When you re-roll the scraps, follow the same process of rolling the dough between the parchment paper and refrigerate for about an hour.

Place the cookie on greased cookie sheets, or cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, about 1 inch apart.

Bake the cookies, using separate cookie sheets for ones with the centers and ones without the centers. Bake the ones with centers for 15-18 minutes, and the ones without the centers for 12-15 minutes, or until they are slightly golden around the edges. 

Let cool completely. Turn the cookies with the centers upside down, and spread about 1 teaspoon jam on each of them. Top with one of the cookies without centers.

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Linzer Heart Cookies

I'm going to really honest here for a second. I made these cookies for one reason, and one reason only: I needed to do a cutesy Valentine's Day post for today.

That being said, I do love these cookies. Flaky, buttery, sandwiched with sweet and tart rhubarb (yes, rhubarb!) jam, what's not to love? But I did make the cookies last week of all weekends for posting purposes. In fact, I even got up early so I could make them and take pictures while it was still light out, before I had to go to meetings in the afternoons. (And yes, I do need to set an alarm if I want to get up at 9:50 a.m. College life.)

It does make me wonder how many people make adorable pink baked goodies for Valentine's Day, and how much of it is food bloggers like me. I mean, I love seeing all the amazing Valentine and St. Patrick themed food on the web, but do people do it in real life?

But food blog existentialism aside, you really should make these cookies. If you're not into the cutesy Valentine thing, just change the shape of the cookies. This recipe is very similar to the shortbread I used for these Abbracci cookies, and they make wonderfully tender and delicious cookies.

The shortbread pairs wonderfully with the rhubarb jam I used because it has more sour notes than some other flavors, but you can use whatever jam  you want. (Or even Nutella! Hey, it's Valentine's Day, treat yourself!)

So enjoy! Whether or not you celebrate Valentine's Day, you should make these cookies (:

-Caroline

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Linzer Heart Cookies

Yields about 3 dozen sandwich cookies

Ingredients
For the Dough
2 ½ cups all purpose flour
¼ cup cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
½ cup sugar
2 egg yolks, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For Assembly
½ cup jam
¼ cup powdered sugar

Directions
Mix together the flour, cornstarch, and salt.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks, and then the vanilla. Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Do not overmix.

Refrigerate the dough at least 1 hour, or overnight.

On a floured surface, roll out the dough to about half a centimeter thick. With a heart-shaped cookie cutter about 1 ½ inches wide (although any shape works!) to cut out the shapes. Place them on a greased baking sheet.

For half of the cookies, use a smaller cookie cutter to make a heart-shaped hole in the middle.

Gather up the scraps and re-roll the dough. Repeat steps 6 and 7. Continue this process until you run out of dough. Refrigerate the cookies for 1-2 hours.

Just before baking, preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, until the edges of the cookies are barely golden.Let the cookies cool completely.

Sift powdered sugar over all the cookies that have a hole in the middle. Microwave the jam for 15-20 seconds, to thin it out. Spread about ½ teaspoon of jam on the remaining cookies. Top with a cookie that has a hole. 

Italian Jam Crostata

Guess what? It's my first day of school! Yippee, sophomore year. And so, while Monica is enjoying one more month of summer break (lucky butt), Boston has been drilling it into me that it is most definitely not summer anymore.  It was 90 degrees when I left Indiana, and 64 degrees when the plane landed in Boston the same afternoon.

And so, instead of finishing unpacking or figuring out my classes, I'm going to talk about this crostata, which I made a few days ago, which reminds me of summer and hot, humid Italy and its vicious mosquitoes that eat you alive. Take that, Boston weather.

This is pretty different from the Blueberry Crostata

that Monica posted a couple of months ago. While hers was more of a pie, this is a shortbread tart filled with jam, and is more cookie-like.

I love the beautiful simplicity of this tart that yields such a rich and delicious flavor. The jam filling is thick and sweet, but not too sweet, and goes perfectly with the buttery shortbread.

See? These are all the ingredients you need to make this crostata.

You can either use store-bought jam or make your own.  I would suggest making it yourself if you have time, so that you have more control over the sweetness. You'll be spreading a lot of jam on the tart, and the sweetness becomes more concentrated through the baking process.

For the dough, whisk together the flour, sugar, and slat, and work in the butter and eggs with your hands, or a pastry cutter.

Refrigerate it for about an hour.

And now, make your jam! If you're using store-bought jam, I'd suggest mixing in about a tablespoon of lemon juice so that it's not too sweet. Cook your jam ingredients in a pot until it thickens.

To test for thickness, place a dollop of jam on a chilled plate and refrigerate for about 3 minutes. You should see that a think skin has formed on top that wrinkles when you touch it with your finger.

Divide your dough in half, with one half being slightly bigger, and roll out the larger half into a 10-inch circle. 

Place it onto a greased baking sheet, spread the jam on it, and roll out the rest of the dough and cut it into 3/4-inch strips.

Lay four strips on the jam:

Fold back every other strip, and lay down a strip across the remaining two strips. 

Return the two strips to their original position so that they are now lying on top of the strip you just laid down, and fold back the other two strips.

Lay down another strip.

Keep on doing this until the lattice covers the whole tart...

Then roll the edges of the circle towards the center, until it touches the jam.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25-35 minutes until golden brown, and enjoy!

Enjoy, all!

-Caroline

Italian Jam Crostata

Click here for the printer-friendly recipe.
Adapted from Tuscan Recipes

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Ingredients
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
⅓ cup granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons butter, cold, cut into cubes
1 egg and 1 egg yolk
1 cup jam (see below for homemade jam)
1 tablespoon lemon juice

For homemade jam:
4 cups fresh fruit (such as blueberries,  pitted cherries, apricots, or peaches)
⅔ cup granulated sugar, or to taste
½ cup water
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions
Make the crust.  Whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt.

Add the butter, egg, and egg yolk. Using your hands or a pastry cutter, incorporate the butter and eggs into the flour to form a smooth dough. Refrigerate for an hour.

Prepare the jam. If you are using store-bought jam that is very sweet, mix in 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, since the baking process will intensify its sweetness.

If you are making the jam, place the fruit, sugar, water, and lemon juice in a large pot and bring to a boil. Boil for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Reduce to a simmer and cook until the jam has thickened. To check if it is thick enough, place a small spoonful onto a chilled plate and refrigerate for 3 minutes. When you push the jam with your finger, it should have formed a skin on top. Let the jam cool.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Assemble the crostata. Divide the dough in half, with one half slightly bigger than the other. Roll out the larger half into a 10-inch circle and place on a greased baking sheet. Spread the jam over the dough, leaving a one-inch border.

To make the lattice crust on top, roll the other half into a 10-inch circle. Using a pizza cutter or knife, cut the circle into about ¾-inch strips.

Lay four strips on top of the jam, parallel to each other and equally spaced. Fold back every other strip.

Lay another strip of dough on top of the two strips that are not folded back. Unfold the two folded strips and lay them down on top of the strip you just added. Fold back the two strips that were not folded over before, lay down another strip, and repeat until the top of the crostata is covered.

Roll the edges of the crostata towards the center, until they touch the jam. Bake the crostata for 25-35 minutes, until golden on top. Let cool until it is only warm, and serve.