Well, not really. But I do love shortbread. Or tea biscuits. Or Danish Butter Cookies. They are all pretty much variations on the same theme: butter and sugar with enough flour to bind them together. I love it; the teen loves it; the best friend loves it; my coworkers love it. What's not to love? It's butter and sugar.
After binging on Walker's Shortbread, Danish Butter Cookies and honey almond tea biscuits the week before and week of Christmas, you would think I had shorted out my craving? HA! As If. More like I was on a mission to get fat... er, find more cookies. Thus, I took to Pinterest looking for a tea biscuit recipe.
I did a little research because most of the recipes for shortbread and tea biscuits are nearly identical. Ask.com says it's a matter of flour and sugars. I didn't see that in the recipes I read. There is a texture difference, however, between tea cookies and the Walker's Shortbread I picked up at the British Import store in my home town.
Remember that a biscuit is a cookie.
This is the recipe that I bounced off of: Inspiration Recipe.
Three ingredients? Three common ingredients? Three common ingredients that were in my kitchen at the moment I found the recipe and I was home alone... and bored? That oven was preheating before you could say, "Jolly Good."
I made cookies. I didn't take pictures. They weren't pretty anyway. But never fear, reader. I made them again, taking liberties of my own, and I took pictures along the way.
According to the original recipe, you will need:
2 sticks of real butter, softened. I've told you before- do not use that fake crap. Real Butter is love.
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 1/2 cups of flour
I also add about a teaspoon of almond extract. I love the flavor it adds. I made three variations this time, so there are two other ingredients (one for each variation) that I will mention in a bit.
I use an electric hand mixer, mixing bowl, rolling pin, and cookie cutters. I measure the flour out into a separate bowl, have extra flour on hand for dusting, and bake my cookies on a pan covered in aluminum foil.
Preheat your oven to 300. My oven thinks I should only bake at 350, so I really have to watch the temperature. 350 is too hot and you will end up with tan cookies (Not the "good tan," either).
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| Grated butter |
I have no patience for waiting for my butter to sit around and soften, it works better slightly cool, so I grated it with a cheese grater. It's a LOT faster than waiting for the butter to soften. It also makes working with the electric mixer easier. No jerky killing of butter sticks.
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| Butter + Sugar +Mixer = Good |
I pour the almond extract over the sugar after I dump the sugar in the butter. Add to taste; I used about a teaspoon this time. The flavor was pretty mild. I like overkill.
Creme the butter and sugar. I use my hand mixer starting on slow and then increasing to medium.
After combining the sugar and butter, I took a tip from a different recipe and popped the bowl in the fridge to chill the butter again for just a couple of minutes. While that was in the fridge, I measured out my flour in a separate bowl
The original recipe says the recipe will be flaky. My turns out to the consistency of bread crumbs. It will stick to itself if I work it by hand, though. If I were making my cheese straw recipe, I would add more butter. I don't have anyone guiding me, and I have made this recipe all of twice, so I just go with it. It turns out ok.
Once everything was combined, I gave the dough a time out in the fridge for a few minutes and cleared a space for the next step. You need space. I didn't allow for the the space the first time. It was a pain in the ass. The second time, I scrubbed my counters within an inch of sanity and just worked the dough directly on my floured counter top.
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| REALLY flaky dough right out of bowl |
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| After kneading 4 mintues |
I kept one section plain and kneaded it another 3-5 minutes before rolling it in a ball and popping it back into the fridge.
If you are not adding anything, kneading a total of 10 minutes-ish, until the dough is a solid mass. I let mine rest a couple of minutes in the fridge, just long enough to wipe a dry paper towel over my space and dust with it flour again. I rolled/ smashed it out (somewhere between 1/4" and 1/2" thick) and attacked it with cookie cutters. The first time I used the pizza cutter. It was ok, but cookie cutters are fun!
Place the cookies on your cookie sheet. Prick the cookies with a fork a few times. To be honest, I have forgotten this step both times. It's in most of the recipes I read, so it must be important, but it's not catastrophic if you forget to prick the cookies.
Bake cookies at 300.
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| 16 minutes bad |
Once they are out of the oven, dump on a plate. Brew a mug of Earl Grey tea with two sugars and a splash of milk (or beverage of choice). Take plate and tea to a secure location. Eat while watching BBC online. My BBC programme of choice last night was Death Comes to Pemberley, but Sherlock is a brilliant choice (you cannot go wrong with Sherlock). There is no shame. Just wipe the crumbs off your chest when you're done.
--Now the variations I spoke of--
I made Orange Zest Biscuits and Earl Grey Tea Biscuits. I wasn't inspired by specific recipes, just titles as I looked though tea biscuit recipes on Pinterest. I totally made this up, y'all.
After adding the extra ingredient, I kneaded the dough 3-5 minutes to really incorporate the ingredient through the entire bit of dough. Again, I let the dough rest in the fridge for a few minutes before rolling. The dough balls got really smooth and shiny-- which isn't always great when working with a butter based recipe (so I read). Chilling them seemed to help with that.
I repeated the same process-- rolling, cutting with cookie cutters, placing on the cookie sheet and baking 15ish minutes at 300.
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| Extra ingredients |
For the Orange Zest biscuits, I used about 1/2 a teaspoon of dried orange peel for a small ball of dough. I would probably go upwards of a tablespoon if making the whole batch. Fresh zest would be ideal, but I used orange peel from a jar. The biscuits smelled fantastic out of the oven; the flavor was subtle. Next time I am adding more zest.
For the Earl Grey, I used Tazo brand Earl Grey. It's milder and sweeter than Twinnings or Darvilles of Windsor and has lavender in it, a little non-traditional, but nice. The tea bags are full leaf tea, so I smashed the heck out it in the bag by pinching it and grinding it with my fingers. I ground it up pretty fine-- and I could have ground it up a bit more. I added most of the tea bag to a small ball of dough. The full recipe would need 1-3 tea bags, depending on your taste. Again, the flavor was mild. Biting into a lavender flower was a nice flavor explosion, but a reminder to grind up the tea better. I really liked the lavender flavor, though.
I took all three recipes to my office today and I didn't hear anything bad-- most of the biscuits were gone by afternoon. I think that's a good thing?
That's it. Let me know how yours turn out.
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