{"id":2186,"date":"2020-12-20T23:46:48","date_gmt":"2020-12-20T23:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/?p=2186"},"modified":"2021-01-31T01:58:16","modified_gmt":"2021-01-31T01:58:16","slug":"its-christmas-time-so-i-made-some-shortbread-cookies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/2020\/12\/20\/its-christmas-time-so-i-made-some-shortbread-cookies\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Christmas time, so I made some shortbread cookies — Photos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My aunt has been making shortbread cookies<\/a> for a long time, and used to even send batches of her shortbread cookies<\/a> through the mail across the country to my grandmother. At one point, I asked my aunt to teach me how make her shortbread cookies<\/a> so that I could make them somewhat more often and then bring them directly and personally to my grandmother. Alas, my grandmother passed away a few years ago, but I have continued making the shortbread cookies<\/a> because they are tasty, and my mom has said “why should I bother making my shortbread cookies when you make them (an albeit different recipe<\/a>) so well?” \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently made them<\/a> for the third time in the past month or so, this time to make as a Christmas gift for my brother who also really likes them; I reminded him that our aunt is the mistress, and I merely the student. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started off by bringing a pound of butter to room temperature:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A pound of butter brought to room temperature<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Then I creamed the butter with an electric beater (dating from the early 1960’s — it’s older than I am!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Creaming the butter with an electric beater<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A cup (packed) of brown sugar was added …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A cup (packed) of brown sugar added.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

… and then blended with the creamed butter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
1 (packed) cup of brown sugar blended into the creamed butter <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Four cups of regular flour were added, one cup at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The first of four cups of flour added to the butter and brown sugar mix<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Here is the dough after all four cups of flour have been mixed in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dough after all the flour has been added and mixed together<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Next, flour was spread on the cutting board to avoid sticking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Flour on the cutting board<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The dough was placed on the cutting board, floured a bit on top to avoid sticking, and flattened with my hands:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dough on the cutting board, floured and flattened out by hand<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The dough was then further flattened out with a rolling pin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Using a rolling pin to further flatten out the dough<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The dough was then cut into strips about an inch wide, and ends were cut off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dough cut into roughly 1″ wide strips<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I started to cut the strips into roughly two inch lengths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
2″ lengths of dough were cut<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Cuttings from the edges and cookie pieces that broke were put back in the mixing bowl to be formed together again to cut more cookies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dough cuttings put back in the mixing bowl<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The rectangular cookies were placed on cookie sheets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Cookie dough rectangles placed on baking sheets<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The cookies were then pricked with a fork. According to instruction #4 of the shortbread cookies recipe on the King Arthur Flour website<\/a> (here’s my archive<\/a>), it’s to allow steam to escape and avoid bubbling up of the cookies; to me it’s also been a matter of the traditions of the aesthetics of shortbread cookies; oh well, I do it because that’s how I was taught. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Pricking the cookies with a fork<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Some of the cookies have been pricked.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

And here are all of my cookies, at the end of the pricking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
All of the cookies, pricked, ready to bake<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Yet another closeup of the cookies, ready to bake<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The cookies were placed in an oven preheated to 300F and baked for 22 minutes. This could vary somewhat based on your oven and the electrical load in your neighbourhood at the time you bake, but take them out when the bottoms just start to brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Shortbread cookies baking at 300F for 22 minutes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

And here are the cookies, cooling on baking racks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Baked cookies on cooling racks<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Yes, there is a broken cookie in the upper right hand corner, it broke when I took it off the baking tray. Anyway, I had to do a quality control test, you must understand … it was yummy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cookies are now bagged up carefully and the bags placed in a box, which was placed in the freezer until Christmas Day when they will be given to my brother as one of his gifts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My aunt has been making shortbread cookies for a long time, and used to even send batches of her shortbread cookies through the mail across the country to my grandmother. At one point, I asked my aunt to teach me how make her shortbread cookies so that I could make them somewhat more often and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “It’s Christmas time, so I made some shortbread cookies — Photos”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[162,44,43,45],"tags":[164,168],"class_list":["post-2186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas","category-cooking","category-food","category-recipes","tag-christmas","tag-shortbread-cookies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2186"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2462,"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions\/2462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malak.ca\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}