Dorie Greenspan's Sables

Early last week I received a parcel from my friend Shalini. I knew I was getting something interesting (I was secretly praying for cookies :P) Guess what I got?

WOOHOO!!! If you are on my Orkut friend list you will know of my mental obsession with this book! So anyway I decided to bake something (Hallelujah!) and settled on this,

Sables/Shortbread cookies:

Ingredients:

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 C sugar

1/4 C powdered sugar, sifted

1/2 tsp salt

2 large egg yolks, at room temperature

2 C all purpose flour

Coarse sugar for decorating

1) Using a hand/stand mixer beat the butter till smooth and very creamy. Add the sugars and beat until well blended, about 1 minute. The mixture should be smooth and velvety, not fluffy and airy.

2) Reduce mixer speed to low and beat in the egg yolks, again beating till the mixture is homogenous.

3) Add the flour and mix using a spatula, until the dough looks uniformly moist. The dough will not clean the sides of the bowl nor will it come together in a ball. You want to work the dough AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE.

4) Divide the dough in half and shape each piece into a smooth log about 9 inches long.

5) Wrap the logs well and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours (or overnight).

6) Preheat the oven to 350F. Line the baking sheets with parchment paper.

7) Remove the log of dough from the refrigerator, unwrap it and place it on a parchment paper. Brush some yolk all over the sides of the dough- this is the glue0 then sprinkle the entire surface of the log with coarse sugar.

8) Slice the log into 1/3 - 1/2 inch thick cookies ( no thinner than 1/4 inch). Place the round on the baking sheets.

9) Bake foe 17-20 mins. When properly baked the cookies will be light brown on the bottom, lightly golden around the edges and pale on top. Remove from the oven and let it rest a minute before carefully lifting them onto a rack to cool to room temperature.

Dorie says, "..the cookie is both crumbly and melt-in-the-mouth tender; and it has an anytime rightness that makes it perfect with atall glass of milk, a bowl of ice cream or a basket of berries..." What she doesn't say is that they are highly addictive, you just cannot stop at one.

Shalini, thanks much for the book and I hope D and you enjoy the cookies as much we did!

Winter blues

I have no mood

...to read, the books I got from the library are just rotting away in the plastic bag.

...to take pictures. The camera, lenses and tripod are packed away in the closet.

...to bake. The brand new Kitchen-Aid mixer that J got for me as an anniversary gift is still in the box. I don't even know the colour of the mixer, sad.

...to cook anything new.

...to even check out the scrap booking software J bought for me during Thanksgiving. And I love scarp booking. sigh.

...to knit/crochet. Its been more than 2 months since I touched the yarn and needles.

...to watch TV. I have not watched Ina Garten or Alton Brown for God knows how long.

...to blog. I started this post on Monday sigh.

Why? I suffer from SAD. I despise winter, to me its the worst season ever. It is perpetually cold, it gets dark early, everyone is covered from head to toe in heavy coats, its all white and gloomy, there is just no colour or life in winter ugh! And I don't even want to talk about snow *puke*

Summer where art thou?

PS- if you are a winter lover and want to try to make me fall in love with winter. Save it. It is not going to work.

I feel...

like eating mysore pak. Not the hard-healthy-no ghee (less ghee)-less sugar-saccharin one. The soft, real sugar (sucrose) laden, ghee dripping (ok not dripping, but you get the point), the melt-in-the-mouth kind. Anandha Bhavan in Chennai used to have awesome mysore paks. Me wants :( very badly. What do you want badly? (cars, XBOX, Wii, new wife/husband, good grades, Hawaii vacation etc. not accepted, only food items).