Shortbread Chronicles, Chapter 15

Flour, sugar, butter, salt. Only four ingredients but an infinite number of wrong combinations. On the surface, a completely simple recipe: the devil is in the details, as the old saying goes. 

Today I continue my quest to create the delicious (or at a minimum, fairly edible) shortbread cookie. I have generously titled this recap "Chapter 15," although I feel certain I have baked (and trashed) more like 25 or so batches of shortbread in the past year. No more random attempts! Starting today, I will be scientifically chronicling my failures---if I eliminate all the recipes that aren't shortbread, won't I eventually find the recipe that is? 

For today's version, I have turned to the book Tea with Alice. This recipe is allegedly from the Liddell family, whose daughter was of course the "Wonderland" Alice---an expert on Mad Hatters, tea parties in general, and thus shortbread. 

And so we begin:2 1/2 cups of flour + 2 sticks butter + 1 tsp salt + 1/3 cup confectioner's sugar. Rolled immediately after mixing without chilling the dough at all. Into the 275-degree convection oven for 30 minutes, cooled for an additional 10 minutes.

The taste is not bad: plain (as shortbread should be, I think), with a hint of salt. Texture is a little off though: when I bite it, breaks up in a powdery mess.  Luckily they are pretty small so maybe the best choice here is to eat them whole (the Queen would not approve). Perhaps they will continue to harden up and then they might be bite-able. Appearance is certainly not a success though:  they remained completely 'white' instead of browning on the edges or the bottom, giving them a not-cooked look. I sprinkled half the batch with sugar, a clear violation of shortbread guidelines, in the hopes that the extra sweetness might tempt the kids at least. The other half is the standard plain.

Why is this so difficult?! 19th-century little girls in their play kitchens could make shortbread. Pilgrims with wood-burning open hearths could make shortbread. Scottish women, Girl Scouts, Lorna Doone---they all could make shortbread.  I have high-tech baking gear and access to the finest ingredients (free-range cows wail and moan over the amount of their creamy butter I have ruined with my baking), but I still can't make decent shortbread!

"Why are you even trying this?" my husband recently asked. "It's the worst cookie on earth.  Shortbread may have been good back when molasses and ginger were popular dessert flavors, but it's a little outdated for the current era."  His version of an acceptable "cookie" is something with chocolate, nuts, frosting, Oreo crumbs, and shards of M & M.

So the final result is...awaiting further review.  I won't toss it in the trash just yet, preferring to wait for the family units to weigh in with their opinions later.  The dogs, of course, enjoy ALL my shortbreads ("They're just like our Milk Bones, Ma'am!") so at least a few won't go to waste regardless.

The Malinois iPad

As my birthday approached earlier this month, my family (apparently stumped for gift ideas) suddenly started beating the drum for "Let's get another dog." Not just a dog, in fact, but a PUPPY. Since we already have a one-eyed senior canine slinking around the house in addition to an insecure younger shepherd mix, I assumed they were joking. "That would be great," I told them sarcastically. "Go get me a Belgian Malinois."

In case you haven't been tuning into the Westminster Dog Shows or Animal Planet on television, you might not be so familiar with the Belgian Malinois. To simplify things, I'll just say that it looks kind of like a German Shepherd and is used almost exclusively in law and drug enforcement. High demand and limited supply means 1) you have to shell out some serious coin to 'reserve' a puppy; and 2) the finicky breeders probably won't sell you one anyway once they find out you are planning to keep him as a pet (horrors!). Let's say I felt pretty confident that no such animal would be showing up in a cardboard box with a birthday bow on it.

Under duress from my husband, I agreed to research the idea, and presented information about local breeders and upcoming litters---including critical details about certification of elbows/knees and the all-important bite strength (yikes!) of the doggie parents. I repeatedly asked "Did you get my Malinois yet?" My husband simply smirked and replied "I have my sources."

Perhaps hearing all the discussion about puppies, the existing household canines made their preferences known that week as well. They vomited their food, escaped from the fence, shed all over, killed a rabbit in the yard, and demanded to be let outside at all hours of the day and night. A puppy would be even worse than we are! they seemed to be telling us with their actions. I agreed.

On my birthday, we all went out to dinner. "What about the puppy?" I reminded them as we backed out of the garage. They assured me, "He'll be on the porch when we get back."

Hours later when we returned, I had presents but no puppy on the porch. As I began to open the last present I asked "Is my Malinois in here? There are no airholes punched in this box." My husband answered "He's in there along with everything about him."

I opened the box, reached in, and pulled out...an iPad. In a way, the iPad was kind of like a puppy in that I neither asked for nor needed either one. Hmmm.

The iPad is superior in that it doesn't vomit or ask to be let outside, of course. An actual puppy would commonly be considered more fun though (except perhaps by my kids who want to use the iPad just to play Angry Birds). It's a toss-up.

I plugged the thing into the computer and registered it as "The Malinois iPad," adding a Malinois screensaver for good measure. The one-eyed dog gave me a nod and slinked back to her lair.