TWD: HUNGARIAN SHORTBREAD

This week, Tuesdays with Dorie features Gail Gale, a great pastry chef, cookbook author and TV personality. When we lived in Chicago we loved going to the restaurants Gand and her husband owned. Alas, they divorced but Gand continued to work in restaurants and write cookbooks. Her “butter, sugar, flour, eggs” is one of my favortites. That book has the best bread pudding recipe ever. But, included in that cookbook is the recipe for Hungarian Shortbread. I tried it way back in 1999 and the result was a soggy mess of undercooked dough and jam. Yuck. Here are the updated approaches to this recipe: So, I was very happy to discover that the bakers of TWD had some solutions. First, reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe: I used 1-3/4 cups instead of 2 cups.

Second, pre-bake the bottom crust: I baked it for 15 minutes. After baking you will layer the jam and remaining grated dough. This is the final cooked pan of shortbread. Third: use your food processor to grate the frozen dough. I froze the dough in pieces that would fit into my processor. Then you grate the dough and put half in the baking pan. FYI I froze the dough for 45 minutes, not the 2 hours indicated in the recipe. This is the point that many people have a problem: the bottom never cooks if you assemble the whole cookie now. Instead: grate one half of the dough, put it in the pan, and pre-bake the bottom for 15 minutes. Then add the jam and top layer. Here is the dough that has been cooked for 15 minutes. You spread your jam on the cooked dough and then cover it with the remaning grated dough. Now the cookies will bake for another 35-40 minutes. Instead of confectioners sugar as a topping, I used sparkling sugar to finish the cookies. The final cookies are very tasty, crunchy and buttery at the same time. These won’t keep well, the jam in the center softens the cookie. Scottish shortbread is so much easier to make but this cookie is more complex. If fancy is what you want, this cookie delivers great taste and appearance. Please visit our hosts for the week to see the full recipe: Dabbler and 1small kitchen Cheers to all, Patty

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