The last time that I visited my sister, one of her friends popped by, looked at me and said, “Did you bring cookies for Laurie?”
Indeed, I had brought cookies and other things, as usual, and I knew that Annette would likely be the recipient of one or two cookies or something else I’d baked. I asked Annette to tell me what her favorite cookie is. “Shortbread,” she said.
Here’s the thing. I make many kinds of butter cookies, many original, but I’d never made shortbread in my life, so I decided to do some searching and choosing, bought some top-quality unsalted butter and then something happened to point me in a certain direction. One of my neighbors gave me a couple empty tins. As you can see from a careful look, they were from Sur La Table and had been filled with Lemon Fresh Shortbreads. I read the label, found their ingredients included Lemon Paste, went to the Pike Place Market store of Sur La Table and was disappointed to have to mail order a jar of Nielson-Massey’s version.
I discovered in my search that shortbread can be made in a baking dish, pie plate, springform pan or, my favorite, sliced and baked on a cookie sheet. I looked at several recipes, found there is a classic formula for plain shortbread and adapted my own recipe from it while adding the lemon paste and fresh lemon zest. The aroma from them as they came out of the oven was chef’s kiss. They’re buttery, flavorful and there’s a tin for Laurie and one for Annette. They will both:
Ms Chef in Seattle 