Shortbread Fingers
March 5 2019
Oh Lord! Martha and her pans!
I have a pretty big selection of baking pans and cookie sheets.
I have 3 giant cookie sheets that are the size of my oven rack, I use these the most.
I also have about 6 others that are all in the 12x15ish range.
For cakes, I have 8-inch rounds, 9-inch rounds, some huge rounds from my grandmother, 9×13 cake pans…I even have a heart shaped cake pan for when the kids have their Valentines Day Cake raffle at school.
I DO NOT have a 12×8 cookie sheet. Does anyone? It is small. Go measure your smallest cookie sheet, I bet it is not even close to 12×8.
I needed to improvise as my smallest cookie sheet is 10 x 13ish.
I thought about using a 9×13 cake pan, but this recipe calls for spreading the dough across the bottom of the sheet.
So, I used my small cookie sheet and put a mini cupcake tin upside down beside it to create a “wall”, so it was the right size.
Alright, I have mentioned my mother’s lack of baking skills before. There is one thing she can bake.
Whipped shortbread.
This has been her staple for as long as I can remember. Only at Christmastime does she make these, and my sister eats most of them. I think my mom likes to make these because you just sort of drop them on the sheet and bake them.
My mom’s whipped shortbread is a really low effort cookie with a pretty good payoff.
So, when I see a shortbread recipe in this book I am not sold, but willing to give it a shot. It is also a more crispy, more traditional shortbread.
The recipe looks simple and I am falling a little behind in my pace for bakes.
The kids being home on so many snow days these past few weeks, have thrown a wrench in to my planning.
I was looking for a quick and easy bake that I could crank out with ease. This appeared to be it.
Once I have my pan situation figured out, I make the dough. This is super simple, as it is butter, flour and powdered sugar. I don’t even put on my apron, this is going so well.
It comes together simple enough but spreading it on the makeshift 12×8 cookie sheet is difficult. It is almost tough, and hard to smooth out.
After I manipulate it with my fingers I get it done and pop it in the oven.
In my grossly overstated confidence, I have forgotten to chill the dough in the pan for 15 minutes and prick it with a fork.
We shall see how this goes.
OK. Not bad.
They are not pretty, but it came out ok.
One might say “rustic”
I transferred it to the cooling rack immediately and it was pretty soft. I was able to cut the fingers as instructed. My makeshift dimensions were 11×9, not bad.
I thought they tatsed pretty good, everyone else thought hey were amazing!
I find shortbread to be heavy and dense and prefer a lighter cookie. These were really flaky and had good texture.
I will make these again simply due to the ease and availability of the ingredients in our pantry. I may even try to seek out a proper 12×8 inch rimmed cookie sheet.
Undeniably Bakeable!
