Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Strawberry Jam Filled Shortbreads




Oh. my. gosh. This recipe was kind of a disaster. It did, however, turn out to be delicious, which is why I'm sharing it with you. The photos look a little wacky (too dark and stuff), but I'm not trying to impress today. After I made vanilla-chai shortbread cookies, I was really impressed how something not terribly sweet could be so satisfying to my sweet tooth.



I was on a mission to make a "cute" cookie for a co-worker who spent about 4-5 days of her time trying to teach me how to work with radioactive material, while not allowing myself to be radioactive. She was successful, thankfully :). This recipe caught my eye on Tastespotting, and I thought it would be the perfect treat. Little did I know that Tony would have to console me and do damage control to even get a few decent looking cookies.


*Side note: I'm going to try to not incorporate any pictures in the instructions portion of the recipes anymore, unless I hear loud objections. I figure that this way, if you want to print out the recipe, you don't have to copy and paste into a document file a bunch of times. I wish I had a fancy food blog that had a link to "print this recipe," but Lord knows I don't have the time or energy to figure such a thing out.

Here's the story:

Ingredients:
*These were all tanslated from metric, which may inherently be the issue with the recipe not going as planned. Here's the original post, and you can do the convertin' yourself if you don't trust me, or use your kitchen scale.

7 Tbs butter, softened
0.44 c sugar (I used a little less than 1/2 cup)
1 2/3 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup strawberry jam (or whatever jam is your favorite)
1/2 Tbs saigon cinnamon (or any cinnamon you have) to sprinkle on top

Procedure:

1. Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl with a wooden spoon until thoroughly mixed.

2. Add flour and baking powder (which should be sifted together), until combined. Finally, add in the egg and vanilla until incorporated. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and stick in the fridge for about an hour.
*This is where I believe I went wrong. I should have known to let it go a little bit longer, instead I was left with a frustrating, sticky mess. Don't be like me. Exert some patience.

**At this point, you want to start warming your oven up to 325F.

3. Divide the chilled dough into two lumps. Roll out one half with a rolling pin, until it's about a half inch or less thick. Place on a greased cookie sheet.

4. Spread the jam evenly over the entire surface.

5. Roll out the second half the same way, and place delicately on top of the jam-covered dough, attempting to have all of the edges match. Since my dough was not chilled enough, this was a little challenging. I may or may not have thrown my hands up in the air and made Tony finish this step.

6. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on top of the shortbread, if desired.

7. Pop in the oven. The original recipe suggested for 15 minutes, but I found I had to bake mine for roughly 25 minutes--just keep an eye on it until the edges become golden.

8. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking tray for about 5-10 minutes. Cut into shapes (I chose squares, but you could also use a cookie cutter or cut them into diagonals), and serve!


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