Years ago, while I was pregnant with my daughter, I decided to buy a copy of Gourmet magazine (Dec 2004) during the holidays. Something about the cookies and treats on the cover inspired me to not only purchase the magazine, but to bake every cookie recipe in it. I have pictures of me baking, about 8 months pregnant, in our tiny Seattle apartment. The countertops are covered with cookies and I just keep on going. Something about being pregnant forced me to bake cookies. This was WAY before I had even considered blogging (although think of how far along I would have been had I started back then) and before I even thought I enjoyed cooking and baking.
I was thinking back to that magazine and those cookies when I was trying to decide what to bake for the Food Blogger Cookie Swap. Last year, I received so many great cookies and I wanted to make sure that I had something special for my cookie swap partners.
This cookie, this lightly spiced shortbread with a drizzle of espresso and bittersweet chocolate, was the most memorable of all. They have a flavor (cardamom!) that is different from what you would expect and they are sophisticated looking for any type of party or get-together.
I hope my food blog cookie swap partners enjoyed them! I know we sure did.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
Ingredients
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cardamon
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp allspice
- 2 sticks unsalted butter
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp coffee powder (I used Starbucks Via)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 T milk
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
- 3 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, melted
Instructions
- Mix together dry ingredients.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, mix together the butter and sugar until whipped. About 3-4 minutes. Add the eggs and the vanilla.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until combined.
- Form dough into 2-12 inch logs (about 1 1/2 inches in diameter) and wrap each plastic wrap or waxed paper.
- Using your hands, shape the log so that the sides are more squared off rather than rounded.
- Put in the refrigerator to cool for about 1-2 hours.
- When you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees and place parchment on a baking sheet.
- Cut logs into 1/4 inch thick slices and place on baking sheet about 1 inch apart.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, turning them halfway through the baking process.
- Allow to cool completely before making and adding the glaze.
- You can use Ziploc baggies and cut off the ends or you can get a bit more fancy with piping bags and bottles. I used a combination. For the espresso glaze, I used a piping bottle and for the chocolate I used a Ziploc bag with a tiny hole cut in the end.
- First, mix up the espresso glaze by whisking together the espresso powder, the confectioners sugar and the vanilla.
- Hopefully, your cookies are all still laying flat on the cooling racks and you can apply the glaze in broad strokes across the whole batch. No need to be precise.
- Next, melt up the chocolate using a double boiler (microwaves aren’t good for you!) and once the chocolate is nice and melted, spoon into a baggie. Snip the end (a tiny little snip) and then proceed as you did above, making sure to get a cool chocolate stripe or two on every cookie.
- Allow to rest for at least two hours for the icing to set.
- Enjoy!
Recipe from Gourmet Magazine, December 2004.