New goal for the fall: bake at least one new recipe each week. Try to write about it...
It's so nice that the hottest summer in Austin's history has finally come to a close. I guess it says something about how hot the summer was to have a day like today, where it's a mere 90 degrees and have it feel so nice.
Anyway, now that the summer is over, and we don't have to worry about paying for AC to fight off those 107 degree afternoon temperatures, I can finally use the oven again. I've already baked bread twice in the last week, which is such a joy. Though one good side effect of three months forced abstinence from homecmade bread, is that you realize how great it really is, and you just how much you really did miss it.
Today's new recipe is going to be shortbread cookies. I happened to catch the "Everyday Baking" show on PBS yesterday afternoon and this is one of the things that they were making. Now ordinary shortbreads are good, but what really caught my attention was when they used the plain shortbread dough to make cranberry-orange cookies by adding orange zest and dried cranberries. That sounds good and it sounds like fall. Oh, and Patty is crazy for cranberries, so
that will win me some brownie points too ;-)
The recipe turns out to be really easy. You can see it yourself here:
http://www.pbs.org/everydayfood/baking/recipes/icebox_shortbread.html
it's your basic shortbread cookie recipe:
1 cup butter (room temperature)
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups flour
You mix the first three ingredients until they're combined and form a dough. Then you mix in the flour just to get a good dough. You definitely don't want to overmix on the flour because you want cumbly shortbread and if you mix too much on the flour it will make them tough.
After that, I divided the dough in half. One half I left plain, the other I mixed in about 1/2 cup cranberries and the zest of once orange. Then you take each half and roll it into a log using wax paper. It's sitting in the refrigerator now cooling; I'll do the baking here in a while after it's gotten
nice and firm.
--- Later ----
Wow, these turned out excellent! Even better than I had hoped/expected. Much better.
They were really easy to make; you just unwrapped the wax paper and cut the log into slices on a cutting board. About 3/8 inch thick I would say was perfect. From there, it was easy to just lay them on a cookie sheet and pop them into the 350° oven. In my oven, it took about 20 - 25 minutes; I like them with just a little bit of brown on them (I think it gives them more flavor). I'm attaching
some pictures.
And the flavor, wow! Especially the ones with the orange zest in them. The flavor really came through. The cranberries were an excellent complement, providing some texture that you don't get from the cookies themselves. I think
that adding some pecans might make them even better.
And the plain ones were great too. The flavor and texture of the baked cookies is really, really good.
Rating: ****
Difficulty: easy
