Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Lemon Shortbread



Yesterday I decided to try a new recipe. With a few exceptions, I always attempt to follow new instructions on how to bake things- I do have favorite recipes, but I find it more interesting to try new ones.
These look rather large- but they weren't. Although you could cut shapes as big as you liked..... Thankfully the dog did not succeed in stealing any. Which is good because I was too busy battling off hordes of hungry brothers. Well, maybe not hordes, but when they get together they seem to multiply.

I found the recipe on PINCH MY SALT, a fun cooking/baking blog that you should visit sometime.
Although this recipe came off of the aforementioned blog, it contains no salt. Here's the recipe.




                                    1 cup butter, softened
                           1/2 cup granulated sugar
                           1 tablespoon lemon zest
                           2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
                               
                      Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add lemon zest and blend well. By hand, stir in flour a little at a time. Dough will be crumbly, so dump it out onto a counter top or pastry board and work it together by hand until smooth. Pat or roll dough out into a rectangle that is about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into small squares, rectangles or diamonds (whichever you prefer). Arrange cookies on ungreased baking sheet (I use parchment paper for easy cleanup) and bake 20-25 minutes in a preheated 325 degree oven until the bottom edges are just starting to brown.

*note*- I made up the "recipe" for the lemon glaze myself- if you could call it a recipe. Just dump some powdered sugar into a bowl and add enough lemon juice until you reach the desired consistency. I tried tinting part of my glaze a light yellow, to further evoke lemons, but it just looked like mustard.

4 comments:

Elisabeth said...

Oh, those look really, really good! Sometimes I really wish we had white flour lying around so I could do stuff like this.

natalie said...

On the original post (http://pinchmysalt.com/2008/11/28/lemon-shortbread-recipe/) there's a recipe for brown sugar shortbread that is supposedly a bit richer and heavier. It calls for white flour like the lemon variety, but perhaps whole-wheat flour might work for it? Just a thought.

Sandie said...

Yummmmmyyyy! Looks delicious! I think I'll try it out. Good pictures, too, Natalie. :)

Anonymous said...

Woahhhhh! That looks awesome! Thanks for posting! If I can get my blasted oven to cook properly, I will definately try this. Most likely the bottoms will burn, though :).
~Meg