Shortbread Cookies

A year in blogging or bonding should I ask?! Yes this blog has been a part of my life these days.Little did I expect this when I started sharmispassions?! Definitely a noooo!!!

This blog has

1.Earned me so many new friends and few are even close now.

2.Made me learn so many things about food photography.

3.Made the lazy me cook good food and venture even the baking world.

4.Made me aware that there are so many innovative recipes in world which can tempt you to taste even which u hate the most.

5.Made me learn a bit of design and photoshop(though I was reluctant when this was given to me to take up as a career).

And thanks to all of you who have made this blog lively by your motivating and lovely comments.

Now coming to todays cookies...On Vday, made up my mind to corner all the health factors for a while and went ahead with this shortbread cookies from here. Gave a variation of adding cornflour as suggested and they turned out a bit crispy and melt in the mouth texture.I did reserve few to check if the crispiness was maintained the next day too and yes it was exactly the same.

Ingredients :

• APF - 150 gms
• Cornflour - 50 gms
• Salt - a pinch
• Unsalted butter - 100 gms
• Powdered sugar - 50 gms
• Vanilla essence - 1 tsp

Method :

1. In a separate bowl sift the flour with salt. Set aside.

2. Cream butter,add sugar and beat until its smooth - it takes about 5mins. Add vanilla essence and mix well.

3. Now add APF to the butter sugar mixture and bring it to a dough. Flatten the dough into disk shape, wrap in a plastic cover and refrigerate for an hr.

4. On a flat surface roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into your desired shapes and place these cookies on the prepared baking sheet and again refrigerate it for 10-15 minutes.This will firm up the dough for the cookies to maintain their shape.

5. Meanwhile u can preheat the oven to 175deg C for 10mins. Bake the cookies for 12-15 mins The actual recipe says 8-10mins but my cookies took exactly 15mins to bake.

NOTE: If you feel like bread crumble texture after mixing the flour, sugar and butter, you can sprinkle few drops of milk to form the dough like texture for easy rolling and cutting.

This makes 20 shortbreads. This kept in an airtight container will go well for a week.

I often had this mind : What are shortbreads and how they are different from normal cookies? Here is the description from wikipedia

Shortbread is a type of biscuit which is traditionally made from one part white sugar, two parts butter, and three parts of flour. Shortbread is so named because of its crumbly texture (from an old meaning of the word short). Shortbread biscuits are often associated with normal egg-based biscuits, but they hold their shape under pressure, making them ideal for packed meals.

Shortbreads are baked at low temperature to avoid browning. When cooked, it is nearly white, or a light golden brown.

They may be sprinkled with more sugar while cooling. It may even be crumbly before cooled, but will become firmer after cooling. Hmm the taste was heavenly and just melts in ur mouth!!