Last week at work we had lunch catered by Panera bread Company. The last two times we've (and by we I mean me) ordered lunch from there, they brought these AWESOME shortbread cookies. Normally I wouldn't give a shortbread cookies a second look. But since I wasn't impressed with the chocolate chip or oatmeal cookies. I decided to give Panera on more shot to redeem themselves and tried the shortbread cookie.
After the first bite I was blown away by the buttery flavor, and flaky crispy texture. It had just the right about of sweetness and was rich enough that I only need half a cookie to satisfy me. Last week after my second go around with the cookie. I thought to myself, these seem pretty easy I bet I can make these myself!
Then the hunt was on for the perfect, shortbread recipe. Of course I waited until I got home from work to do this search and not look for it on company time ;) . After many recipes I found it. I was not at all surprised to see it was from my cooking and entertainment idol Ina Garten.
The beauty of this recipe is it only has four ingredients, Butter, flour, sugar and vanilla extract. Things that most bakers have on hand. I was excited because I didn't even need to go the store.
Well, I sat on the recipe for about a week and on Tuesday night I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to make the cookies, I was like a woman on a mission. The once the dough is made you have to chill in the fridge for thirty minutes. It was late so I figured I'll bake off the cookies tomorrow.
I got up the next morning and found my dough was rock solid. It had frozen in the back of my fridge overnight. I was sad because I thought I ruined my dough. I got home tonight and thought well try thawing it out and see what happens. After thirty minutes on the counter the dough was still too hard to roll and completely crumbled every time I tried to roll it. I was just about to toss it out and try again. When it hit me let it sit for a little longer and give the butter a chance to melt.
When I came back I found that indeed the dough was now rollable but it still kept crumbling on me. At this point I thought just roll it out slowly and see what happens. To my surprise I got it rolled out and cut out the cookies. I still was nervous not sure if they would taste any good. The timer went off and the first batch was out and they were so GOOD! They tasted as good if not better than the ones I had at Panera. I am glad I didn't scrap the dough and I stuck with it! Now, I can move on to my next food obsession!
1 comment:
Now on to that Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe!
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