Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Still working on the components for a birthday cake, I needed a plaque upon which to write the birthday wishes.  I had considered doing a second batch of the chocolate sugar cookies, but I had run out of room in the refrigerator and freezer, and the dough for those required lots of room in both. Instead, I went for something I knew my mother would help me eat, so I wouldn't pack on more pounds (after having earned my 9-inch waist shrinkage this past two-year span). Needless to say, shortbread was a fine option, and very forgiving when one makes it with gluten-free flours.  (I use Bob's Red Mill GF All-Purpose Flour, but Bob's Red Mill also, now, has a GF 1:1 Baking Flour which has a character very much like the wheat-based AP flour)

In case you find shortbread cookies a little on the dry side (it depends upon my mood…and probably some sort of hormonal thing) you can easily frost these with your favorite frosting or icing. I topped the big cookie with my chocolate royal icing, and put the letters on it using wetted meringue powder, painted on with a brush, and then sprinkled with colored sugar.

Tender and Light Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1/3 cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder
2/3 cup confectioner's (powdered) sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (or your preferred GF all-purpose flour)
pinch kosher salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325º F. (165º C.).

Line a cookie sheet with parchment or nonstick silicone sheet, ungreased.

In a medium or large mixing bowl, cream the butter (whip it up until it's light and fluffy). Continue to beat and gradually add in the confectioner's sugar, keeping it light and fluffy. At slow speed, mix in cocoa powder, flour, and salt.

When completely mixed, pat into a thick disc and wrap tightly in plastic, chill in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, to stiffen and temper the dough for shaping.

Remove from refrigerator, place on silicone sheet or parchment, lay a sheet of plastic over the top (it will keep the dough from sticking to fingers or rolling pin), and roll or pat dough to a minimum of 1/4 inch, or a maximum, if you're feeling wild and crazy, of 1/2-inch thickness. Cut into shapes (I like the easy solution: take a large knife and cut the cookies into bars, about 1 inch by 3 inches. But, if you're ambitious, cut them into fancier shapes with actual cookie cutters). If your cookies are on the thicker side, pierce them each a couple times with a fork.

Place about an inch apart on the prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool on rack.

Pecan Shortbread Cookies (Pecan Sandies), or, How To Reward a Physicist for Retrieving a Wallet from Another Dimension

Yummmm!

I lost my wallet the other day. 

Well, I misplaced it. 

I spent the better part of an hour retracing my few steps, and had no success. It didn't help that I'd just finished a lovely frat-house quality cocktail of vodka and the equivalent of Kool-Aid on an empty stomach moments before I realized my wallet was not in the pocket where it belongs. 

In other words, I was distressed and befuddled, and had no luck finding my plastic, my losing lottery tickets, and my aged ticket to my alma mater's stage production of The Trojans. I wasn't all that worried about those contents, but, dang it, I'd just bought the wallet a few months ago, after spending a year looking for the right one at the right price to suit my needs, and I was going to miss it. 

Besides, it had pics of my sister's kids, at their most adorable, in it.

So I had resigned myself to living with my losses, climbed morosely into my room, gotten into my pajamas, and turned on the tv to watch whatever show had the biggest pyrotechnic display, when Pop came to the door and asked if there might be a reward for the person who finds the wallet. 

It had been out in plain sight, in the room of rest. It was a clear case of hiding in plain sight. On the other side of a dimensional rift.

It took a nuclear physicist to find it. 

This is his payment:

Pop got 30 of these. Mom got two. Seems fair. In Pop's world.

Pecan Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup (1/2 pound)  butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar, tightly packed
3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups plus 3 Tablespoons all-purpose flour, divided
2 cups pecans, coarsely chopped, plus 1/2 cup finely chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350º F.

In large mixer bowl, at relatively high speed, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in vanilla and salt. At low speed, gradually scoop in 2 cups flour until just mixed. Stir in coarsely chopped pecans.

Onto a parchment-covered cookie sheet, set  two inches (about 5 centimeters ) apart, shape dough into  1 1/2 inch (4 cm) balls and top with a sprinkling of finely-chopped pecans. Lightly butter the bottom of a flat-bottomed cup, then dip into bowl holding remaining 3 Tablespoons flour, use floured cup to lightly press cookie dough balls flat-ish.

Bake at 350º F for 15 minutes, or until golden-brown. Cool on rack.

Makes 32.

Let your father have as many as he wants.