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Lavender Lemon Shortbread Cookies

April 13, 2015 by TheWhiteRamekins

lavender lemon shortbread cookies

“You haven’t baked cookies in a very long time now, son”, my papa told me last time I went home with a cake in my hands. Obviously, my parent love, to their heart’s content, whatever I bake or cook for them. I haven’t heard a bad review about anything I have baked for them till date. It has always been of great taste and ultimate experience for them, even if they aren’t totally into it. How sweet it is! Isn’t it? And I love them for this. Though on the hindsight, I get critical of my work all the times. And he’s equally interested in looking at the photos as well. Although, he doesn’t carry a smartphone, neither he is a tech savvy, but he ensures that I show him the images. He just loves to see those food pics and even more enjoys identifying those props which he helps me in sourcing whenever I go see him. He’s always there ready to go with me on the prop hunt, for the search of silliest of articles and the weirdest of surfaces. All these faux surfaces you see here on my blog, he is the reason behind them all. We’ve gone to the junk dealers and the wood yards together always in search of some surface and he’s always happily answered those strange looks – “why the hell anyone would want to buy that stuff” saying that my son needs them for his photography work. He’s that adorable you see. And I am the luckiest person on this earth to have him as my papa. I think parent are like that only. The least I can do is to treat him more with my cakes and bakes and extend my love with creating some more food images and have fun with him every time. Shortbread cookies are the simplest of cookies which one can bake with experimenting to whatever extent. They are like clean slate and you have total freedom to draw your imagination in terms of flavor combination on them. And they are always so forgiving that they’ll never fail you. I got a big bag of edible lavender from my dear friend who was visiting home from US. So now you see, how even more lucky I am. The house was already smelling amazing from the fragrant edible lavender and I wanted to bake something really quick. And there happened these lovely gorgeous summery lavender lemon shortbread cookies, glazed with tangy lemon icing. At first bite, they tasted like rosemary shortbread cookies I had baked previously, but after a couple of bites, the flavors just tricked me in and it tasted so refreshing and summery. I am hopeful to make few more recipes with these lovely fragrant flowers. 

lavender lemon shortbread cookies

lavender lemon shortbread cookies

lavender lemon shortbread cookies

Lavender Lemon Shortbread Cookies
2015-04-13 10:51:56
Yields 18
Lavender Lemon Shortbread Cookies
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Ingredients
  1. 1/2 cup unsalted butter
  2. 1 cup all-purpose flour
  3. 1/4 cup superfine sugar
  4. 1/4 tsp salt
  5. 1 tbsp dried lavender, plus extra for topping
  6. 1/2 cup icing sugar
  7. 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
Instructions
  1. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. Stir in the flour, sugar, salt and lavender and mix thoroughly.
  2. Roll the dough into two equal halves, shaping them in a ball. Flatten each round into a disc and wrap in a cling wrap and let them set in fridge for half an hour.
  3. Preheat the oven to 160 degree C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  4. Taking one disc of dough at a time, roll it on a lightly floured surface to thickness of 1/4 inch. Cut out the cookies using a round cookie cutter and place 1inch apart on the prepared baking sheet.
  5. Bake for 20 minutes; let cool completely on wire rack.
  6. Make the glaze by whisking the icing sugar and lemon juice together. Spoon about 1 teaspoon of the glaze over each cookie, spreading to cover the whole surface. Sprinkle with some more lavender. Let set for 30 minutes to 1 hour before serving.
By Himanshu Taneja
Adapted from Style At Home
Adapted from Style At Home
The White Ramekins http://thewhiteramekins.com/

Filed Under: cookies Tagged With: baking, cookies, food, lavender, lemon, recipes, shortbread

Middle Eastern Nut Filled Cookies (Ma’amoul)

October 22, 2014 by TheWhiteRamekins

Middle Eastern Nut Filled Cookies (Ma'amoul)

It’s the time of year when the hearts are filled with love and joy. Diwali brings a lot of happiness along with it. It is when you get along with all your loved ones, your family and friends. Lighting diyas on Diwali has a warm feeling attached to it. It just symbolizes hope for me. In these times of distrust and sorrows of a mean world outside, a small lighting diya or candle uplifts your spirit and makes you believe in yourself. This being an auspicious time, I don’t want to drag about the serious subject. Because I believe the hope this beautiful festival brings is eternal.

Middle Eastern Nut Filled Cookies (Ma'amoul)

I so love this time of year. Everything is amazingly beautiful and festive. The food, the people and the surroundings. You just happen to love everything about Diwali. You get to eat a lot of sweets and dry fruits and a plenty of rich Indian food, eventually making your tummy happy as well. Every year, I think of planning and starting in advance. But I fall prey to the rush of the last moment. Like every other time,  this year I had thought of making Baklava from scratch for Diwali, which I obviously couldn’t make due to some last minute thoughts. And I didn’t have enough time to roll the thin layers of phyllo from scratch and I didn’t want to buy it from market either.

Middle Eastern Nut Filled Cookies (Ma'amoul)

Like every other Indian family, Diwali also means consumption of lot of dry fruits for us as well. Now, when I couldn’t make Baklava, I thought of making these dry fruits and nut filled eggless cookies called Ma’amoul from one of my favorite cookbooks author Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem. Oh! I so loved these cookies! They are buttery, rich, filled with mixture of dry fruits and very gently sweet. One bite of these and you’ll too sure fall in love.

Middle Eastern Nut Filled Cookies (Ma'amoul)

Traditionally, these are made with filling of dates. But, I filled these kind of shortbread cookies with a medley of nuts and dates. Walnuts, cashews, pistachios, dates, orange rind and a generous handful of rose petals adorn the inside of these cookies. Lovely, rich and fragrant flavors! A true epitome of this festive season! 

Middle Eastern Nut Filled Cookies (Ma'amoul) 

Middle Eastern Nut Filled Cookies (Ma'amoul)
2014-10-21 19:34:30
Middle Eastern Nut Filled Cookies (Ma'amoul)
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For the cookies
  1. 350 gm semolina
  2. 40 gm plain flour
  3. 40 gm caster sugar
  4. pinch of salt
  5. 150 gm unsalted butter, cut into cuber
  6. 2 tbsp orange juice
  7. 1 tsp rose water
For the nuts filling
  1. 50 gm walnuts
  2. 50 gm pistachios
  3. 100 gm cashews
  4. 45 gm dates, roughly chopped
  5. 1/4 cup edible dry rose petals
  6. 1 tsp vanilla powder
  7. 1 tbsp orange juice
  8. 1 tbsp orange rind
Instructions
  1. Put the flour, semolina, sugar and salt into a large mixing bowl and stir together. Add the butter and work with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
  2. Add the water and rose water and mix to make into a ball. Knead the dough to make it completely smooth, about 5 minutes. Cover with damp cloth and let rest for 30 minutes.
  3. To make nuts filling, place all the ingredients into a food processor and pulse quickly to until you get a uniform coarse paste.
  4. Preheat the oven to 190 degree C. Line two baking sheets and keep aside.
  5. To mould the cookies, remove walnut sized pieces of dough and roll into a ball. Flatten each ball in the cup of your hands and lift the edges to shape it like a little pot.
  6. Fill the pastry with heaped tablespoon of the filling. Pinch the edges over the filling so that the pastry pot is sealed and then roll into a ball again. Flatten the ball between the palms of your hands and then place on the baking sheet. Repeat the process of moulding the cookies, until all the dough and the filling is used. You may wish to give it a design by gently pressing the top of the cookies with a fork twines or using a cookies design plunger.
  7. Bake the cookies for 15-20 minutes until cookies are very lightly golden on the edges. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack to let cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to five days.
By Himanshu Taneja
Adapted from Jerusalem by Yottam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi
Adapted from Jerusalem by Yottam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi
The White Ramekins http://thewhiteramekins.com/
 Happy Diwali! May this festival brings harmony and peace in our lives!

Middle Eastern Nut Filled Cookies (Ma'amoul)

Filed Under: cookies Tagged With: baking, cookies, Diwali, dry fruits, eggless, festive, food, India, maamoul, nuts

Alfajores, Dulce De Leche Sandwich Shortbread Cookies

December 27, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

Alfajores

With winters on full bloom, and with holiday season on, it’s time to spend sweet moments with family and friends. This is the season of spreading love and joy, of indulging into all your sweet desires. And not at all a time to worry about anything. Winters to me is not just about those chilling days and nights when sun doesn’t show up for days, but it is more than that. It’s about getting cuddled under the warmth of quilt, munching onto peanuts, carrot halwa and sipping into hot comforting soups. It’s also about chit chatting with family and friends for hours, when most of us have taken off from work, just to be with each other. And when we chat for long long hours, it has to be accompanied with some great food and quick munchies. And to me, cookies are the best things to be traveled and shared and I have been on a cookie baking spree this month.  I baked some brownie cookies with festive season cut outs, like gingerbread men, snowflakes, pine trees and stars {will share the recipe sometime soon}.  And I also baked some easy quick shortbread cookies and sandwiched them with the leftover dulce de leche from roasted banana ice cream, I made during fall. These kind of sandwich cookies are known as Alfajores, and are particularly from the region of Latin America. As dry fruits and nuts mark become essential for the winters, I rolled the edges of cookies into some finely chopped toasted almonds, to make them more festive. They taste better the next day, they are made as the cookies become softer with dulce de leche sandwiched in between.

Alfajores Alfajores Alfajores Alfajores Alfajores Alfajores Alfajores

Ingredients

260 grams all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
200 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
60 grams confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Around 1 1/2 cup dulce de leche {click here for homemade recipe}
Around 1/2 cup finely chopped almonds, toasted

Directions

  1. In a bowl, whisk the flour and salt and keep aside. In a separate bowl, beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Beat in the sugar and vanilla extract. Gently beat in the flour, until incorporated.
  2. Wrap the dough into a cling film and flatten and chill for an hour, until firm.
  3. Preheat the oven to 180 degree C and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  4. On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough until 1/4 inch thick. Using the lightly floured 2 inched round cookie cutter, cut out the cookies and place on baking sheet. Bake for 7 – 10 minutes, until browned on the edges. Let cool completely on a wire rack.
  5. Take two cookies and sandwich them with heaping tablespoon of dulce de leche such that dulce the leche oozes out slightly from the edges. Roll the cookie edges into toasted nuts and store in an airtight container in fridge.

Filed Under: cookies Tagged With: baking, cookies, dulce de leche, eggfree, eggless, festive, food, holidays, sandwich cookies

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Hi! I'm Himanshu - a home chef who loves to cook, bake, style and photo shoot... Read More…

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