TWD: Hungarian Shortbread

Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan
Contributing Baker: Gale Gand


                                     Hungarian Shortbread

Our Tuesdays with Dorie hosts this week are Lynette of 1smallkitchen and Cher of The Not So Exciting Adventures of a Dabbler…. Visit their blogs for the recipe and their take on this creation.

Separate your egg whites into individual dishes

then freeze. Once frozen warm bowls to loosen

 and transfer to a Ziplock bag to use later.

Light and fluffy.

With five bags of cranberries in my freezer I

decided to make cranberry jam rather than the

rhubarb jam called for in the recipe.

I rolled the dough thin enough to fit in the feed tube

 of a food processor as suggested by this fellow baker.

First layer of grated dough.

I pre-baked the first layer just until it started

to change in color before adding the filling.

I was hoping to have some leftover

jam for toast it was so good.

Bwahaaha...

The first piece cut after a few

 hours of cooling fell apart.

By the next day they held together beautifully.

The cranberry jam had wonderful flavor

before baking. After baking it seemed to

lose its tartness.

I consumed more of these then I wanted to trying to determine if I liked them. The answer was right there on my tastebuds. If I did like them there would be no question and I could have stopped at the first piece (or not.) I kept sampling over and over again trying to find the intense flavor I so imagined these would have and unfortunately it was not found in these bars.

The shortbread turned out softer than I was expecting and my filling did not pack much of a punch. The flavor of the jam really did not come through at all now that I think about it. These I find are a bit on the bland side. (Update: I took the leftovers to our girls-night. Everyone loved them - except me.)

I'm thinking I should change my success meter from numbers to "Is it worth the fat and calories?"

Success meter (1-3): 1/No



My version did not impress me but reading other bakers comments they were happy with their outcome. So don't just take my word on this recipe, try it out for yourself by going to our host's sites mentioned at the beginning of this post to obtain the recipe or you can purchase Baking with Julia at your local independent bookseller or on-line.

On another note I once again have been bestowed upon with another blogger award! This one is from Sabine of Berry Lovely. Thank you Sabine. I am deeply touched by your generous gift. Sabine has a beautiful blog and is an amazing photographer. Take the time to check her site out - her photos are visually captivating.