Shortbread Cookie Time!

I have not a scratch of food in this house. Family out of town, so I decided to have a little experiment,...see how long I could go without going to the grocery store. We have none of the stuff we usually have in the house to grab and eat quickly, which may be a great thing,...but not even fruit. I love fruit, especially apples. I honestly think an apple a day keeps the doctor away. At least I feel much better about myself when I am eating apples daily.

Last night at 11 PM I am craving some kind of sweets, so I look at two recipes, for sugar cookies and shortbread. My intention is to make sugar cookie dough and for none of them to make it to the oven,...but taking a slight detour to the refridge where they will cool off and acquire enough density to go under the knife and then into my mouth. Well, I check the recipe and it calls for an egg, guess what,....no eggs in the house,...I would have to nullify my experiment by going to the grocery for eggs, if I made them. I had breezed by the shortbread recipe, remembering it for possible future use,...and it came in handy. I had a little milk left in the fridge, but the recipe didn't call for it. I checked it out anyway, good thing the recipe didn't call for it,...I almost puked due to the smell and am struggling right now with just a fond memory. Poured that out in the sink and washed it down thoroughly. Thought about pouring someone's cologne down as a chaser,...it wasn't mine,...but I decided water would do an adequate job, with time.

Well I read the ingridients and saw that I had everything needed to make the recipe. 2 sticks of butter, check, 2 and a half cups of all purpose flour, check, 1 cup of corn starch, check, 1 cup of powdered sugar, check. Tossed it all in a bowl,...then read that I was supposed to put the butter and sugar in first and use electric beater to whip that to a creamy consistency,...oops,..so Greg improvises, determined to make this work. I got a big potato masher out and started muscling all that stuff into a mixture. After about 15 minutes of struggling, I looked for the electric beater,...found it, couldn't find the beaters. Said some choice words and went back to the potato masher. After 15 more minutes, decided to use the best mixer known to mankind,...hands. It was a nice texture,...like really dry play dough,...it was moist, yet brittle. After mixing it up a little more, decided to preheat the oven and put this mistake to the test.

Got out the cookie sheet with edges,...dumped the contents of the bowl on the metal sheet and began forming it and mashing it down,...trying to get it to a thickness that I know shortbread that I have bought has normally. After I was please with the look and the thickness, I put it in the oven.

The recipe said leave it in until golden brown. Almost immediately, this incredible smell filled the house. I thought, damn, did I cause that incredible baking smell with what I put on that cookie sheet? Wow! I had not even tasted my wares, but was already shockingly impressed that the smell was in keeping with something that should taste pretty good.

300 degrees was what the oven was set on and the recipe said it should stay in 25 to 30 minutes. I kept a close watch on the clock,...senseless to come this far and burn the product. I went over at 15 minutes, no golden brown showing yet,...went over at 25 minutes, it still looked the same! Left it in for 15 more minutes,...well, just beginning to see the edges brown a little. Decided that maybe it was just too thick and needed more time,...decided to leave it in 15 more minutes, which would mean it stayed in the oven a total of one hour.

It looked good coming out of the oven. Got the pizza cutter and began cutting the slab of shortbread into reasonably sized cookies,...not perfect, but tried to stay near to the size of the previously cut cookies. I was also pleased with the way the pizza cutter went through the shortbread slab. No breaking or crumbling,...great. I was kind of afraid extreme crumbling would occur, but thank goodness it did not. So, I immediately picked up a small outer piece, tossed it in my mouth and immediately began juggling it with my tongue, trying not to spit it out, because in my haste to taste, I failed to remember that it had just been removed from a 300 degree oven where it had been for one hour and was still able to sear the flesh on my tongue or the hide on the roof of my mouth. I have kind of perfected juggling hot food with my tongue because of my overly anxious nature to sample my cooking as soon as possible, so with that skill, I escaped injury.

Wow, it was not bad and was actually good. It seemed akin in a variety of ways, to other shortbreads that I had eaten, flavor being the most essential. Density was good, consistency of the cookie, the way it broke apart in my mouth were all signs that my latest cooking project had been a success.

Hopefully there will be no delayed signs of a bad batch, because right now, I think I did a good job. Just don't want to be doubled over tonight in excruciating pain as the shortbread makes it's way through the normal paths the rest of the food I eat traverses. So from a tall guy, try the short bread recipe. Easily impress those who know you don't usually cook.