It's been, oh, I don't know... 6 months since my last TWD post! I'm shocked if I'm still on the blogroll for being such a lazy member. Anyway, I thought I'd make my return with blondies.
I used to be a coconut hater, but ever since I made the samoas bars, I've been finding excuses to bake with coconut. Instead of adding the coconut into the batter, I toasted it and sprinkled it on top for a nice textural contrast. I don't like putting coconut into the dough because it makes them gritty. For the coconut haters, I sprinkled the nuts on the other half. I also don't like putting nuts in the dough because I find that they get soggy. I omitted the white sugar completely to cut down on the sweetness. These were good, but I wasn't crazy about them. I would rather have a chocolate chip cookie so I can enjoy the crispy edges rather than a uniformly soft and chewy square. I may try these again with white rather than butterscotch chips.
Thanks to Nicole of Cookies on Friday for choosing this week's recipe
My first TWD since coming back and boy, was I excited it didn't involve pastry crust or fruit! Fun and all, pastry dough can be a little annoying to make when the food processor has to be lugged out and cleaned. I didn't have granola or peanuts so I subbed old fashioned oatmeal and pecans instead. Compared to what I'm usually make, this was one loaded cookie with nuts, raisins, cocunt and wheat germ. When it comes to add-ins I'm definitely not the 'adventurous' type... I've never even mixed nuts and chocolate together. Anyway, that's why I love TWD because I get to try things I would've never done on my own. Overall, it was a good cookie, but not something I would go crazy over. It could have been my fault for using regular oats and ending up with an oaty cookie rather than one with actual oat chunks. This may be my shortest post, but the olympics are on... Go Canada! Thanks to Michelle of Bad Girl Baking for choosing this recipe, which can be found on her site and in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my Home to Yours. Don't forget to checkout the TWD Blogroll!
The goal of TWD was to bake through the entire book and of course to try new recipes and have a lot of fun on the way! I joined late so there are about 23 recipes to catch up for, but I would still like to go back and complete older TWDs from the beginning. I can't say I was overly excited when I saw that I would have to make shortbread, but after those scones I was sure I wouldn't be disappointed. As usual, the first thing I noticed was the high amount of butter. Even though I wanted to stick to the recipe, 2 sticks of butter for just 1 1/2 cups of flour seemed a little too much so I reduced it to 1.5 sticks. As they were baking, I was starting to see the beautifully cut squares slowly melt into a puddle. Most of the cookies spread so much that they had spiky edges except for the 3 up at the top that best retained their shape.
My cookies didn't end up looking pale as they should have, but I think it worked out better that way. The carmelization of the brown sugar added a nice butterscotchy flavour and when combined with the ground up pecans made a flavourful and amazingly textured cookie. They were really crisp on the outside from all the spreading and slightly chewy in the center. The best part was probably how flaky they ended up being. I may not be a shortbread fan, but I will definitely try these again!
This recipe can be found in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my Home to Yours
