Chocolate Dipped Shortbread

This is from a long time ago. In fact, I don’t remember when. A few months ago, if I had to guess. What I’m saying is that I never have a point.

What’s your favourite aisle in the supermarket? For me, I’d say it’s either between the baking section (what a surprise) or the candy/chocolate aisle. Or the produce section, if that counts. The selection of candies and chocolates they had were enticing. Especially the Lindt bars they had. I mean, Lindt. How can you go wrong with that? They looked so wonderfully fancy and bold, with a combination of unique yet classic flavours. So that’s how I ended up with three different flavoured bars. Back then, I had a fundraiser thing coming up. For that I had to bake about a hundred or so individual baked goods. My mind instantly went to shortbread, since it’s basic and easy, and yields a good amount of cookies at the end.

Then I took it a step further and decided to drizzle and dip them in chocolate. Some I left plain, though. And there were a few with almonds pressed into them. Here’s the shortbread recipe I used.

From left to right: mint, orange, and salted caramel.

Don’t the descriptions sound absolutely divine?

That was the cookie cutter of my choice. Lime green and in the shape of a basic circle. Very… retro. But still makes for simple and beautiful cookies.

Don’t they resemble scallops? Even if only a little bit?

Notice the odd mounds of scrapped dough. I can safely say I’m no good at rolling and cutting out cookies.

No reason for me to include that photo. Move along.

Here they are, after being baked. Those are the almonds I mentioned. Roasted and salted.

What a beauty of a bar. Let the dipping and drizzling commence! As for how I melted the chocolate, I took the lazy route and used the microwave.

Luscious.

My photography skills back then left a lot to be desired. To say the least. But I have to vouch for this method of dressing up simple cookies. Not that shortbread cookies aren’t strong enough to stand on their own. They are, with their rich and buttery flavour. But this is a way to make an already good dessert more decadent. It’s easy. It looks nice. And it’s a crowd pleaser.

I have a few things to say about the chocolate flavours. The caramel was sweet. As in it was dancing on the point of being sickly sweet, even though it had some saltiness to counter that. This is coming from someone with a major sweet tooth. The orange had a refreshing flavour, and was certainly not short on delivering that citrusy edge. It was my sister’s favourite. Then the mint. Almost like your average dark chocolate. But with a punch of frostiness at the end, which really pleased me.

After coating the cookies, I placed them on a sheet, then stored them in the fridge, uncovered. That was so the chocolate would harden and I could package them. I bet they’d set at room temperature too, but that would obviously take longer.

For the fundraiser, I also made lemon bars. That was my first attempt. They turned out okay, though a little gooey and runny, which I attribute to my inexperience and my lack of care. Apart from that, they tasted great, with a buttery crust and a filling full of lemony goodness. It was balanced well with powerful flavours. Then the mess happened when I cut into them. It’s a stretch to call them squares. They weren’t very appealing, aesthetics wise. So I used powdered sugar, the concealer of the baking world.

This is the recipe I used.

Behold, the disastrous disaster. How redundant.

All is not lost! Salvaged, and packaged neatly in a box. I then received rave reviews for them.

My old photography “skills”… sigh.

Test Butter Cookies and Bars

What do you consider to be a plain cookie? Or a basic one? I’d say it’s a cookie without additional flavouring, and made with minimal ingredients. So, say, a butter cookie. Shortbread, maybe. I have a thing for formulating my own recipes. I decided to come up with my own butter cookie recipe a while ago. However, my niche lies in bread baking, not cookie baking. I went in a little blind.

During the trip to Japan, I bought a few cookie cutters and decor tools. For this trial, I tested some of them, and I must say, they’re great. Japan has some unique things. To say the least. I picked up a set of tiny cookie stamps which is comprised of the alphabet and a few miscellaneous symbols. They’re adorable. I also got a cookie cutter shaped like a poodle, and another small one shaped like a goldfish.

Going off topic now. Since I like experimenting, I decided to try making some sort of shortbread strawberry bar thing. It turned out well. Above my expectations, actually. I brought it to a family dinner. My younger cousin kept going back for seconds, which was a good sign. Although that was a while ago and I don’t quite remember the exact recipe. The base was similar to shortbread, or was made of shortbread dough. But with vanilla extract added. I topped it with a mixture of mascarpone, greek yogurt, and whipped cream. Then I topped it all off with some chopped up strawberries macerated in sugar and torn mint leaves. It was a good contrast to the rich, buttery crust, and the creamy and tangy topping. Flavours are definitely fun to play with.

One criticism- the dough was underbaked. I baked it until it was barely browned and still rather soft. If you like eating raw dough, then that’s the way to go, but as for me, I’d bake it until firmer next time. I’ll try to remember the recipe. If I do, I’ll give this its own individual post. For now there’ll be no recipe posted here. My apologies.

Oh, and we had giant strawberries then. Or maybe my hands are just small.

Back to the poodle cookies. Once again, no recipe, because that was a trial one. The dough was a little tricky to manage, but I barely chilled it, so it’s no mystery as to why. That resulted in a moderate use of extra flour.

By the way, the poodle cookie on the lower right corner says ‘moo’. Not sure why it wasn’t clear.

Let’s play “find the poodle with the Frankenstein leg”.

So then I placed those in the freezer for a while and preheated the oven. To 180˚C, probably. The default.

They turned out like this.