Wednesday, July 1, 2009

First Crack at Shortbread

My grandmother passed away exactly two months ago to the day. She left behind an enormous collection of cookbooks, kitchen stuff, and really interesting food. I take after her culinary ways so I stepped up to the challenge of using up all of the food she left behind. This includes about 10 jars of jam. Using jam on toast can only get one person so far, so I have been digging through my cookbook collection (and hers!) to find new ways to use some of this stuff up.

When I went to school at Plymouth State, I would sometimes go in and look through the clearance books. I found a few interesting cookbooks for next to nothing. One of them is Shortbread by Jann Johnson. I had never even tried shortbread before but it looked interesting, so I paid the two bucks and put it on my shelf for about 6 months while I finished school. It's actually a really cute book - I wish I had looked through it sooner!




I was scanning through it last night before bed (my pre-bedtime relaxation ritual is to browse through cookbooks) and I discovered a few interesting shortbread recipes. ONE of which used jam. YES!




This recipe called for black raspberry jam, interestingly enough, one of the few jams my grandma did not have. Or maybe she had already used it. Anyways, I made a substitution of strawberry, and I also didn't measure it out. Just smeared it on. Here's how I modified the recipe:


White-Chocolate & Strawberry Shortbread

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) + 2 tbsp butter, softened
1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
About 1/3 cup jam
A handful of white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line an 8-inch round cake pan with plastic wrap, leaving some to hang over the edges. With a mixer, beat the butter on low speed about one minute. Mix in the sugar, salt, and vanilla, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Mix in the flour gradually until just combined.

Press half the dough into the lined cake pan creating a round of dough. Press into the dough with the back of a spoon to spread and smooth. Lift the dough out using the plastic wrap, and flip onto parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Lay more plastic wrap down and repeat the process of spreading the dough out in the cake pan.

Spread the jam on the first dough round until covered, leaving about a half inch on the edge of the circle. Sprinkle with white chocolate chips, as many as desired. Lift the second dough round out of the cake pan and carefully layer it on top of the first dough round, jam, and white chocolate. Let it sit for a few minutes, then combine the edges of the rounds. A fork can be used at this stage to put designs around the edge.

Bake for about 45 minutes until shortbread has set but has not browned. Let sit out of oven for a few minutes, then carefully lift the parchment paper onto a cooling rack. Cool shortbread completely before slicing. Cut into 16 wedges with a sharp, thin knife.










Voila! My first attempt at shortbread! It turned out really tasty. I will have to try a new shortbread recipe from this book again soon!
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