Given my oft-confessed love of bread, you might think that I would harbour a resentment towards those that wear its colours falsely, trying to pass themselves off as something better than they truly are. And you'd be right: sweetbreads? Not what they sound like. Shortbread, though? Love it.
I mean, sure, it's far from bread. But it's just butter, flour, and sugar - where can you go wrong? For a start you can use the wrong kind of flour. That would be a start. In our defense, wheat flour was all we had, and... healthy, right?
But I'm getting ahead of myself. At this point we were just excited to finally be getting a chance to use our gorgeous mixer, which really is more suited to cooking for crowds. (The included recipe for chocolate chip cookies had a yield of 54 cookies. Crowds! Or, y'know, Americans.)
Today's Gordon touch: lemon thyme. Shortbread is a delicate creature (when made right), and lemon thyme is a delicate flavour, so we were definitely looking forward to the finished product - something suitable for afternoon tea, perhaps.
In with the flour! Did I mention it was the wrong kind of flour? I'm beginning to get the impression that we should stick to savouries.
All seems well for now, anyway - we have dough! It's a bit brown, sure, but that's only to be expected, given the flour. Time to roll it out and cut our rounds.
Ah. So that's not going to work, then. Plan B?
Good old Plan B: throw it all in a baking dish. We can always cut it up later. (Even the camera was excited about Plan B.)
Did I mention it was brown? Cooking it until it's golden brown is a wee bit trickier when it was darker than that to begin with. So it ended up being not really cooked through.
Most disappointing was that the lemon thyme was all but lost in the mix. Overall I thought it was kludgy and weird, but Christina loved it!
I mean, sure, it's far from bread. But it's just butter, flour, and sugar - where can you go wrong? For a start you can use the wrong kind of flour. That would be a start. In our defense, wheat flour was all we had, and... healthy, right?
But I'm getting ahead of myself. At this point we were just excited to finally be getting a chance to use our gorgeous mixer, which really is more suited to cooking for crowds. (The included recipe for chocolate chip cookies had a yield of 54 cookies. Crowds! Or, y'know, Americans.)
Today's Gordon touch: lemon thyme. Shortbread is a delicate creature (when made right), and lemon thyme is a delicate flavour, so we were definitely looking forward to the finished product - something suitable for afternoon tea, perhaps.
In with the flour! Did I mention it was the wrong kind of flour? I'm beginning to get the impression that we should stick to savouries.
All seems well for now, anyway - we have dough! It's a bit brown, sure, but that's only to be expected, given the flour. Time to roll it out and cut our rounds.
Ah. So that's not going to work, then. Plan B?
Good old Plan B: throw it all in a baking dish. We can always cut it up later. (Even the camera was excited about Plan B.)
Did I mention it was brown? Cooking it until it's golden brown is a wee bit trickier when it was darker than that to begin with. So it ended up being not really cooked through.
Most disappointing was that the lemon thyme was all but lost in the mix. Overall I thought it was kludgy and weird, but Christina loved it!
I'm loving the word "kludgy"
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