This was one of those recipes I thought I had in my back pocket. Shortbread and tea: so obvious it’s boring! But this month’s Lavender Earl Grey was made for shortbread. So when I told everyone at the tea party a while back what I was planning, they all seemed surprised I was not only trying to make shortbread for the first time but also trying to make it with tea. The fact that my fellow bakers cautioned me on the difficulty planted a tiny seed of doubt, but not enough to stop me. I used a shortbread recipe given to me by the mother of one of my Grade 1 students from a previous year – she had gifted me some Scottish shortbread cookies for Christmas one year that Michael still will not forgive me for sharing with another kid I worked with. But that’s another story.
For my first attempt, I decided to put the leaves in whole. How could I crush Lavender Earl Grey Tea?? Alas. The cookies were tasty but left…crunchy bits…between your teeth and wedged inside your gums for an immeasurable amount of time after eating them. Oops. Then our lovely intern, Maureen, discovered a recipe online for tea-infused butter – brilliant! You can find the recipe here:
http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2010/05/baking-with-tea-how-to-get-flavor-of.html
For my second try, I followed their instructions and butter-to-tea ratio, which is extremely high (2:1!). So…no crunchy bits this time, but just a bit too much tea and not enough cookie! I shared these excessively tea-tasting cookies with everyone at the next tea party and they were very kind and told me they were great if you liked tea. 🙂
One of our tea party attendees, Darcy, had made a batch of shortbread and brought it to the party to share with everyone. They were incredible: soft and buttery and not too sweet and perfectly satisfying. I jotted down her recipe on the back of my score card and decided to abandon the Scottish shortbread for the butterier Welsh version. Yum! Third try: I made these later that day while taking a break from writing report cards. I used HALF the tea the original butter infusion recipe called for, let it cool (I put it in the fridge for a bit so it would harden faster) then used it with this recipe.
Taste-wise, they were a total success. Hopefully this will inspire some of you ‘less professional’ bakers out there to give it a try. Once I figured out these were not so difficult and very yummy!
Happy baking,
Ariella
Darcy’s Welsh Shortbread Recipe:
- 3 cups flour
- ½ cup cornstarch
- 1 cup icing sugar
- 1lb butter (infused with Lavender Earl Grey – see recipe above)
Cream tea-infused butter, add sugar and work together until creamy. Add sifted flour and cornstarch. Whip until fluffy or mixture breaks.
If sticky, add more flour so it can be rolled. Roll into logs and chill. Cut the logs into cookie size and bake at 350 until light brown.
These can also be garnished with walnut pieces or maracino cherries prior to baking, if you want to save your tea for drinking!
