Fruit

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.