Chai Shortbread Cookies

Chai Shortbread Cookies

Dave very thoughtfully bought some cardamom over the weekend, and I think when somebody gives you an ingredient or a new cooking pan, you should make them something. Therefore: chai shortbread cookies.

The ingredients list is pretty small:

ingredients assemled

The only sugar in this dough is powdered. Weird, right? And other than that it’s just butter and spices, mostly. Plus a splash of ice water.

It’s all about the dry ingredients, at first. I read the recipe reviews and doubled the spices. (I think next time I’ll add even more.)

dry ingredients

And then it’s right to the butter & sugar stage.

butter and sugar

And then it’s all about texture for a while. Cream the butter & sugar until fluffy, although mostly I thought it just looked buttery.

creamed butter and sugar

And then you keep adding flour and end up with a mixture that’s a little crumbly. It didn’t feel like cookie dough to me, but I trusted the recipe-writer. Crumbly it was.

crumbly dough

And then, as instructed, I created two very unappetizing-looking dough logs. I was a bit rushed as Dave was getting dinner on the table and Juliet was demanding snacks and I wanted to steer her towards pasta instead, so I wasn’t as precise and careful as I should have been. I would have gotten better cookie sizes & shapes if I had been, but I could smell dinner and I was hungry and I just wanted to get the stuff into the fridge so I could eat. So here are my unsightly logs:

dough logs

And then I grabbed the Saran Wrap, which made them a little less unpleasant to look at. A little.

all wrapped up

I threw them in the fridge and sat down to dinner. Nathaniel had already eaten, but Juliet hung around for the turkey meatballs.

Juliet at dinner

About an hour and a half later, Juliet was in bed (and I’ll spare you the details, because it was a rough evening), Nathaniel was in the shower, and I was ready to slice up the dough.

knife and dough

It really doesn’t look any prettier than it did before, does it.

I did the best I could to slice it evenly. Next time I’ll work harder on shaping it beforehand, now that I’ve been through the process. I had to squish and move things around a little after I got them onto the tray, too.

cookies on tray

And in they went! 10 minutes at 375 degrees was perfect, they were done just right. Texture was nice and crisp without falling into pieces, there was a nice bit of brown around the edges but the bottoms weren’t overcooked, and they taste great. The pepper stays with you for a bit afterwards, which I like, and I think upping the cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon would make them even better. But they’re good!

finished cookies

It’s a soothing and simple cookie. Just what I needed.

CHAI SHORTBREAD COOKIES RECIPE

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