March 2: Scottish Shortbread

It's only Day 2 and already my first FAIL. Well, I wouldn't call it a complete and utter flop, but this recipe certainly didn't go as smoothly as I'd have liked. That's why it's Ms. Adventures, folks!

When a dough is "short", it means that the high fat content inhibits the strengthening and elongating of gluten strands (read: it shortens them). If you think of gluten as the bones of a baked good, high fat weakens these bones (or rather, prevents them from forming in the first place) resulting in a crumbly product. That tidbit was brought to you by Bakehouse Rock!*

Shortbread, then, is a high-fat cookie with a crumbly texture. Traditionally a shortbread is made with one part sugar, two parts butter, and three parts (oatmeal) flour. This should have set off alarm bells when I laid eyes on the Scottish Shortbread recipe in The Ultimate Cookie Book, which calls for equal parts "superfine" sugar and butter.

Now, "superfine" sugar is a rather ambiguous description. Does it mean the finest grade of granulated sugar? Does it mean confectioners/icing sugar? Well, given that I've seen other Shortbread recipes that called for icing sugar, and I would certainly describe it as "superfine" I decided to go with that. This move turned out to be the Albuquerque to my Bugs Bunny.

The resulting dough was a crumbly mess that just wouldn't bind together--despite my adding an extra 1/4 cup butter--let alone lend itself for rolling and cutting. Not wanting to give up, I pressed the mess into my 10" round tart pan, docked it (lightly pricked the dough with a fork ) and hoped for the best. Worst case scenario, I've got a tart crust!

After baking I sliced the cookies into triangles before the dough cooled and set, and allowed it to cool completely within the pan. Results:

• Aroma: This certainly smelled like shortbread! The sweet buttery aroma caused a reaction that filled my whole mouth with saliva.
• Taste: I give it a 3 out of 4. A nice buttery and sweet taste without being cloying, but I could also taste the flour. This is a no-no.
• Texture: It's crumbly all right, but it's also a little tough. This is where the main failure of the dough lies, in my opinion. This could be the result of several things:

1. I over-kneaded the dough. The recipe said to gradually add flour and knead until the dough no longer sticks to your kneading surface (in this case, my marble slab). Perhaps I should have stopped adding flour when this happened, even though that meant not using the full 2 1/2 cups.
   
2. The quantity of starch in the icing sugar. In a plot that I can only speculate was conspiratorially designed to bolster the Canadian corn farming industry, Canadian icing sugar contains up to 5% corn starch. Now I can understand in a humid country this might be necessary to absorb moisture from the sugar to prevent clumps, but Canada enjoys a mere two months of almost humid climes, instead opting to submit to its two other seasons (winter, and "construction"). Essentially, by using icing sugar instead of granulated sugar, I was introducing more starch to the dough, to its detriment. To account for this, I should have reduced the amount of flour, but of course, not knowing exactly how much corn starch was in the flour, I wouldn't know how much to reduce the flour by.
3. The ratios were off. Equal parts butter and sugar? Next time I'll try the traditional 1-2-3 ratio.

Final grade: C. I think I will mulligan Shortbread on the weekend. If you want to try succeeding at this recipe where I failed, you may find the Scottish Shortbread recipe on my Recipes page.

To order these "Cookies for a Cause" (don't worry, I'd make you some new ones) please click this link to donate at my Daily Bread Food Bank fundraising page.

*I can't decide which is worse, these Shortbreads, or my Photoshop skills.