Shortbread

Ok, I know that baking sounds ominous to some of you with thoughts of incinerated cookies wafting through your head. Well worry no more because I have found a super easy recipe for shortbread that you will die for.

I was planning a tea party for some girls and their moms last week, and decided to pop into Sur La Table to try and get ideas. It's so dangerous for me to go into places like that since I want to buy the whole store. My weakness is their baking items, and I ended up buying some buscuit cutters and a lemon zester/grater/garnish peeler, and a thermometer. As I meandered the store (for about two and a half hours) I ran across their shrinking number of cookbooks. I saw the title 'Cooking With Julia' by Dorie Greenspan and I had to pick it up. Inside was one of the best baking books I have ever picked up. Its content is based on the PBS cooking series that Julia hosted while she was alive. It is a wonderful compendium of baking knowledge for anyone interested in learning how to bake or bake better. Now, it is a little wordier than your average Rachel Ray cookbook, but it gives you the reasons and science to the recipes. It builds your knowlegde of baking and if you read through it, you can find the answers to a lot of questions about baking.

Ok, the recipe was super easy. I was very skeptical at first because I have tried Martha Stewart recipes before (not recommended) and this seemed like it could go that direction. But, nonetheless, I looked at all of the pictures and recipes before settling on the Hungarian Shortbread since it looked fairly simple. In short, all you do is make some dough, devide it in half, freeze it for a little bit and then grate it into the baking pan. There is some jam involved halfway through, but the whole thing was simple and the results fantastic!

If you an interested in the recipe, you can save some money by going out to Amazon where you can find the 481 page book for just under $17.00 including shipping and handling. I would recommend this book highly if you are at all interested in baking and want a good reference book with some lovely photos and great recipes. More to come as I try out more of the recipes. Happy baking!