6.05.2016

Shortbread: an appropriate pre-summer bite

And suddenly, it's pretty much summer around here. With a big vacation behind us, I'm kind of looking forward to a pretty chill summer spent mostly in my city and within 400 miles. To a fault we've always kind of been last-minute summer planners, partly because summer is not always equated with time off or school vacation for us (though it's easy for people to think I get summers off because I work at a college). No, it's more like a really nice time of year to be working, a time to take advantage of all the weekends and everything that happens after 5 p.m. on weekdays. I'm cool with that.

Right now, my running list consists of picking strawberries at Greenbluff, riding bikes to new breweries, keeping the flowers properly watered, finding some new hikes with the dog, watching baseball, going swimming, sleeping with the windows open, eating al fresco, going to the movies, figuring out if we can redo the deck, visiting family, paddling down the Little Spokane, turning on the air conditioning, staying up late, getting up early, reading some lighthearted books (I seriously need this), making sorbet and freezer jam, and sweating. 

And baking when it's not unbearably hot.

Still reflecting on my Whole30 experience, I've reincorporated pretty much everything back into my diet, but eating isn't quite the same. It's enjoyable, but I'm finding that I'm more annoyingly discriminating. I'm almost back up to my normal weight (and normal is fine), and while it's possible some of this could be muscle, I'm hoping I didn't just screw up my metabolism. So I'm being a little more careful than I might otherwise be for a little while, which is probably good anyway. 

What this means: I'm back to making very small cookies. 



This recipe for Sprouted Kitchen's Chocolate-Drizzled Oatmeal Shortbread is delightfully simple and another one of those recipes that I almost always have the ingredients for. The recipe, as written, makes 20 cookies, but with my "make it smaller" mentality, I was able to churn out about 33 cookies by rolling the log a bit thinner, more like 2 inches thick instead of 3, before cutting it into 1/2-inch thick cookies. I just kept a closer eye on the oven, but the timing worked out to be about the same. Refrigerated dough logs are also nice because you don't have to bake it all at once, and if you decide that it is, in fact, too hot to turn on the oven, just wait for a different day.

Chocolate-Drizzled Oatmeal Shortbread
adapted from The Sprouted Kitchen cookbook

1 1/2 c. old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 c. unsalted butter, room temp
1/2 c. sugar in the raw (turbinado sugar)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 egg
3/4 c. all-purpose flour (or rice flour for GF)
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg
2 1/2 oz. dark chocolate
Flaked sea salt, for garnish

Pulse the oats in a food processor to create a course flour, not completely smooth. Place oats in bowl and set aside.

Wipe out the food processor bowl and add the butter and sugar. Cream until light. Add the vanilla and egg and mix, scraping down the bowl as necessary. Add the oats, AP flour, salt and nutmeg and pulse a few times to combine. The dough should be fairly tacky.

Carefully turn out the dough onto the counter. Using your hands, roll the dough into a log, 2-3 inches in diameter (per my note above). Roll up the log in plastic wrap or parchment paper and chill in the fridge at least an hour, if not more.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment.

Working quickly, slice the log into 1/2-inch cookies and place them on the baking sheets 1-2 inches apart (mine didn't spread that much). Bake until the edges just begin to brown, 14-16 minutes. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

As the cookies cool, melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. When cookies have cooled, place them back on the parchment paper used for baking (you can keep them on the cooling rack, too, with the paper underneath). Using a spoon or a plastic bag with the corner snipped off, drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookies as you'd like. Sprinkle the flaked salt. Let the chocolate firm up completely before storing. 


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