I was invited to my future in-laws house for supper on Friday and thought it would be a great opportunity to get going on this project. After careful consideration, I decided there wasn't a single recipe I felt confident making and taking to their house. The recipes I have contain a lot of walnuts, candied fruit and mincemeat (which is a recipe I have that contains approximately 12 lbs of ingredients. Not sure when I'm ever going to need 12 lbs of mincemeat!) and I don't have any of those things in my house right now. I opted for cupcakes from my own recipe instead and decided to start Saturday by having a go at the Melting Moments recipe.
This looks like a very basic shortbread recipe. I don't remember ever having these before.
I cut the portions in half so I wouldn't end up with a whole bunch of them and got to work. Knowing a little about cookie making I had softened the butter to room temperature and then mixed all the ingredients in.
Not too promising at this point. I measured my ingredients using my scale and a proper cup so I know my measurements aren't off. So, I soldier on. Next step, roll into small balls and press down with a fork. These were incredibly crumbly at this point (which is kind of what I expected from the recipe) but the heat from my hand melted the butter enough that they stuck together and stayed in balls long enough to put onto a cookie sheet. No instructions in the recipe about baking so I put these on parchment paper to bake.
Here's the end result:
Not bad looking.
Taste test time. These were AWFUL!!! They tasted like eating a spoonful of flour and left an awful scratchiness at the back of my throat. Suddenly I flashed back to my childhood Christmases at Gran's house. THESE are the reason I didn't eat shortbread cookies until the age of 20! I definitely don't recommend this recipe.
Luckily I was able to tinker with the recipe a bit and came up with a much better result. I googled Melting Moments and most of the recipes I found had some corn starch in them. The prettiest looking ones were also rolled in icing sugar when they came out of the oven.
Here's my new recipe:
Melting Moments
Oven: 350
Bake Time: 8 minutes
Makes: 24
1/4 lb room temperature butter
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup corn starch
1 tbsp icing sugar + small bowl full for rolling
1/2 tsp almond extract
1. Mix all ingredients together. Don't over mix.
2. Roll into small-ish balls and place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
3. Bake for 8 minutes.
4. Remove from oven and immediately roll in icing sugar.
5. Once the cookies have cooled, roll again in icing sugar.
These turned out WAY better and I would definitely make them again. I decided to add almond extract to add a bit more flavour but these would be delicious with any other flavouring. They melted in my mouth and had a nice firm texture that were just delicious when rolled in the icing sugar.
Next up: Molasses Cookies!