Melting Moments, or Why are we doing this again?

Lindsay and I met up a few weekends ago and went through the book to divvy up the recipes.  We both have about 65 recipes to try.  I'm hoping to do one or two each weekend, taking time off for my wedding and honeymoon in the summer.  I've had this copy for a week and already have schmutz on it.  Gran would be proud.

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.

To the oven!  Ummm... temperature?  Time?  Well, let's start at 350.  I checked them around the 6 minute mark and they still looked a little underdone so checked them again at 8 minutes and they were starting to brown so I pulled them out.

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!