I’m a big fan of homemade food gifts, and luckily for me most people I know really like Food.
My dad is one such person who likes Food. But not just any Food: Simple Food. Usually White Food. (Example: some days for lunch he will just make a big bowl of instant mashed potatoes. Or a can of baked beans with leftover white rice). Perhaps this is where my deep and abiding love of mashed potatoes came from.
One of the Simple White Foods that he loves (others include: pound cake, tapioca pudding, Bojangle’s Cajun filet biscuits, and, oddly enough, rutabaga) is shortbread cookies.
These cookies look nearly the same cooked as when they are raw.
Usually these take the form of store-bought Pecan Sandies or Lorna Doones, or the occasional Christmas-gift-basket box of Walkers Scottish shortbread.
But because it was his birthday, and because I did not know what else to give him, and because I am cheap, I made a batch of shortbread cookies.
Talk about simple: there are just four ingredients. And talk about White: white sugar, white flour, white salt. (And butter, which is very nearly white).
At any rate, they were super easy and fast (like your mom!), and the recipe says they get better over time (but we’ll never know—the entire batch is nearly gone already and it’s only been three days).
I used a cookie stamp, just because I happened to have one on hand, but I’ll be honest: it was sort of a pain in the ass. I think that might have been because my dough was too warm when I tried to stamp it or maybe because I’m a perfectionist, but many of the cookies came out less-than-adequately-stamped. But that’s okay. I ate all of those. (No, not really. Just a few. For testing purposes).
Hey, you've got nice balls. Can I stamp them? And then put them in an oven?
Here’s the recipe if you have a White-Food-Lover in your life whose birthday is approaching.
Shortbread Cookies Recipe from The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter 1 teaspoon salt ¾ cup sugar 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional) 1 teaspoon almond extract (also optional but highly recommended—by me)In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and salt. Add the vanilla and almond extracts, if using, and mix. Add the flour and mix until well-blended. Roll the dough into 1 ½ inch balls (approximately a heaping Tablespoon’s worth) and place on a baking sheet (I could fit about 15 per sheet). Press down on the balls with a cookie stamp, if using, or the bottom of a glass. They should be about 2 ½ inches in diameter, and no thinner than ¼ inch—thicker is better (that’s what she said). Chill them in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 300° and bake about 20 minutes until the bottoms are a light golden color. Store in tins lined with parchment or wax paper. King Arthur says that they improve with age (like wine and the men that I date) but they haven’t lasted long enough for me to find out (like my wine, but unlike my men).