Chubby Bunny

Cocoa Coconut Shortbread

The initial plan was to make a custard tart. Then I realized we were practically out of milk and I wasn’t in the mood to venture out to search for my beloved 2%. I mean, I would have, but explaining to my parents why I did not pick up other groceries along the way always makes me feel silly. I don’t mind picking up groceries, but I never know what to get.

Anyway, I was much inspired this morning by one of my favorite pastry chefs, Gale Gand. She has a show, Sweet Dreams, that airs Friday mornings on Food Network. And today the theme was brown sugar.

Her first line of attack was to make a brown sugar shortbread. It was then I realized I had forgotten that I planned to make shortbread a long time ago. But I didn’t. It wasn’t until after I baked this baby that I realized why I hadn’t made shortbread before.

As Hang best put it, shortbread might as well be called salty butter bread. Yes, I did not know I had it in me, but I put in a stick of softened butter into a final product that would occupy a 10-inch tart pan.

Butter– better than margarine, but it still doesn’t do the body good.

Anyway, I looked up Gand’s recipe on food.com and decided I wanted to do things my way. I wanted to go for a Chocolate Coconut Shortbread. This required some easily accessible ingredients.

• 1 stick of softened butter
• ~ 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup corn starch
• < 1/4 cup of sugar
• ~ 1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder
• ~ 1-2 teaspoons of Ovaltine
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon of dessicated coconut powder
• 1 tsp coconut extract
• Topping: 1:2 ratio of dessicated coconut to sugar

As with most cookies, start by creaming the butter and sugar together. Sift all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Then combine.

Does it look lumpy and disastrous? You’re on the right track. Blend ingredients until it’s clumpy, scraping the bowl as you go. Stop and knead or just press it together with a spatula a few times in the bowl.

Gand rolled out her dough. Believe it or not, I do not own a rolling pin. So I skipped this and just lighly pressed it into the tart pan.

Smooth it out by exploiting physics (pull spatula in opposite direction from where your other hand is holding the pan.) This is a great time to put your off-set spatula to use. It’s a very good investment if you bake things other than cookies.

Bake in the middle rack of your oven at 325-350°F for 15 minutes, then pick it up (with oven mitts of course) and drop it a few times to make sure the surface is even. Then, let it bake for another 15 minutes.

Complaints? I wish I put more flour in. It probably would have been safe to up the flour added into it by 1/2 cup. This is what I get for not reading up on various shortbread recipes and understanding the chemical role of the ingredients (drats!)

Take it out and sprinkle on the coconut/sugar mixture while it’s still hot. Let it cool on a rack before cutting.

Traditional shortbread is cut in wedges, though not this narrow. It’s better to go for bars, probably, because the points can break off easily. (Again, physics!)

And presto: heart attack cookies. The texture is sandy and melt-in-your mouth crumbly. I think if more flour had been added, the cookie would have been more stable thanks to gluten, oh wonderful protein (unless you’re allergic to it.) I guess the best way to judge how much flour to add is to feel the batter before you get it into a pan. If it’s too soft, then the butter:flour ratio is too high, so more flour should be added.

Lesson learned.