Skip to main content

4C shortbread

By


Shortbread traditionally has always been a Scottish biscuit, the 'Short' is indicative of shortening or the fat used in making these delicious & calorie rich treats.

Personally, I love making these since they do not involve the use of egg ( Don't get me wrong, I'm fascinated by these protein packed globes that pop out from a hen's rear end, but have this odd avoidance/ phobia about working with them.. It had something to do with a mildly traumatic incident involving my 8th birthday cake, a broken window... Someday If I write my biography, I'll tell the tale!)

Food52 my favorite community blog, had this contest with coffee as the theme ingredient last week. & the  number of fabulous recipes that were sent in was simply amazing! The enthusiasm itself was worth creating a tribute dish for & the 4C shortbread was my contribution! The Inspiration came from 3 individuals and the dishes they had submitted for the contest.  Bevi, a food consultant from Vermont who had a fabulous recipe for a versatile shortbread with many options, Tiggybee from California with a fabulous recipe for a spiced Iced coffee and Pauljoseph from Kerala, who is an amazing source for wonderful recipes & morsels of amazing trivia related to food. You simply HAVE to check this wonderful site out! Something that everyone on food52 looks forward to, is Pauljosephs photographs of spices, herbs, fruit & veggies we so much take for granted in daily life, yet, know little of about how they look in their native habitat.

The spices and flavorings used in this recipe are are found in God's own country, Kerala, Cardamom, cloves, coffee & Cream... it seemed fitting that these four terms should come together to form the '4C' (which incidentally, is also a term used to describe quality in Diamonds! speaking of Diamonds... here's a lovely ad for those shiny bits of coal... Disclaimer: Tanishq is NOT involved in Iyer n'chef!). The bonus is that my kitchen started smelling like I was brewing a cauldron of rich creamy coffee, that alone was enough for a wonderful buzz!!


For this ridiculously easy snack you need:


  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 8 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons instant coffee granules (taster's choice french roast worked for me)
  • 6 pods cardamom,
  • 4 cloves
  • 2 tablespoons light cream
  • 1 1/4 cup All purpose flour
  • 1 pinch salt 
  1. Using a mortar & pestle, crush the cloves, cardamom seeds & the coffee granules to a smooth powder.
  2. Cream the butter & sugar till well combined. add the spiced coffee powder & cream, whisk a little longer till light & fluffy.
  3. Sift the all purpose flour and the salt. fold the flour into the creamed butter and work till the flour is incorporated completely and the mixture comes together into a ball. wrap in plastic wrap & chill for an hour in the refrigerator
  4. Preheat oven to 350 F.
  5. Remove the dough from the refrigerator, roll out to a 1/4 inch thickness (using extra flour for dusting). Using a cookie cutter, cut out the dough and place onto a cookie sheet.
  6. Bake for ~ 10 minutes or until the lower surface of the cookies starts turning a golden brown. remove & cool on a wire rack. Store in an airtight jar.
  7. Serve alongside a hot cup of.....tea or hot chocolate!!


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

I'd love to hear feedback from you, your thoughts, ideas and suggestions.

Popular posts from this blog

Sputtering back....

By
I seriously feel like this scene from the movie 3 idiots .. remember this one? The way I kept racking up drafts and eventually stopped doing that as well. Lulled into complacence by the quick high from Instagram posts. Recipe measurements hastily scribbled into a Moleskine notebook faithfully depending upon my moods. The truth is that I keep over thinking the backstories needed to make the post more interesting while in reality the truth is that ideas and inspirations just occur spontaneously (like little itches , sneezes or twitches) whenever the opportunity happens to strike. Some really cool ideas that scare the beejeezus out of me and yet prove to be utterly delightful and simple in the end. Others, that seem so trivial that I feel it wouldn't be worth crowing about -- even if there are enough other recipes in that genre that get so much publicity simply because the author happens to have the right marketing knack. So in the past 4 years that I've been...
3 comments
Read more

Product Review: Ninja Mega Kitchen system and a recipe for Masala Dosa

By
 One of the biggest reasons for attending conferences is the priceless experience of meeting fellow bloggers and get an invaluable exposure to all things  culinary. This includes vendors with new products to savor and get inspiration from. I had no complaints about whatever appliances I had for making traditional Dosa (Traditional South Indian rice & lentil crepes) batter, a sturdy tabletop stone grinder that you could add the Urad dal, turn the timer on , and 30  minutes later, come back to a container full of fluffy, batter with the consistency of whipped egg whites. The The cons of this is the cleaning up, of the various parts, the roller, the grinding bin, the multiple trays on which the rollers need to be placed while transferring the rice & lentil batter, the invariable drips of thick batter on the counter.... you get the point, It takes quite a bit of time. I was pleasantly surprised when the appliance company, Ninja asked me if I'd like to try an...
14 comments
Read more

Unusual Ingredients - Unripe Blueberry Achar

By
T'was just another Summer afternoon, The kids were home for the summer holidays, getting bored, there's only so much summer reading you can force them to do, and the Indian mommy in me could no longer caution them against going out in the afternoon  (I've solemnly refused to use that horrid excuse of 'You'll get a dark tan if you stay out in the mid day sun'), and so we decided to head out to Terhune orchards for the blueberry picking. The kids never say no to outings to the orchard, they LOVE the trip there, the cute yellow dogs and the cats,  the chocolate crinkle and Snickerdoodle cookies, and they positively trip over grabbing buckets and heading joyfully towards the berry bushes... ... And there it ends, the younger one loses herself in her delightful imaginary worlds where she probably thinks she's hacking her way through virgin Amazon jungle, sighing at every branch that brushes against her legs, picks 2 or 3 berries as if they were a new as ...
6 comments
Read more