Scotch Shortbread

My first disaster!!!! I baked the cookies for 20 minutes, according to the directions, but after checking them at the 18 minute mark, they were burned!!!! The directions actually said that they would not brown but they sure were brown!!! For the second batch I baked them for 9 minutes which seemed to be about right. These are rolled cookies and you can cut them into shapes but I really prefer shortbread to be in bar form. This also makes them thicker which I think is better. Taste was alright but I would look for another recipe to make them as bars. You could actually just take this dough and form it in the bottom of a glass bottom pan and bake it as bars. One unusual thing, the dough is mixed by hand! Only one more recipe to roll out...yeah!!!

Moravian Ginger Cookies

I think that I really, really don't like making rolled cookies! I have not found a recipe yet in this group that is as good as the orange drop, dream bars or butterscotch brownies. There are still a few more to go before we move on to spritz cookies but I am not holding my breath! Again, the recipe did not make very many cookies so there were not enough for the UH people. These ginger cookies have a lot of molasses in them so they have the texture of ginger snaps but not as much of the bite. Actually, they have too much molasses and could do with more ginger! To sum up, these are OK but not great! On to shortbread tomorrow night...

Filled Cookies comments

Trish had a good suggestion after tasting these this morning. The criticism I had was about the filling and if you substituted a good berry jam, these would be really wonderful! Even the apricot/nut filling from the previous filled cookies would be great. Though you put filling on the entire bottom cookie, it is too thin and doesn't stay in place to give enough flavor until you hit the middle. A thicker jam would solve that problem! Thanks for the suggestion, Trish!

Filled Cookies

The hot, humid weather is to return tomorrow so I was glad to get these made tonight. I have one more recipe that requires the dough to be rolled out but hopefully it is not as hard to work with as the sugar cookie dough. As with the previous filled cookie recipe, two circles of dough are required for each cookie so there were not enough finished cookies for the tasters at UH.....so sorry! I also had to make them thicker than the recipe called for to be able to transfer them to the cookie sheet so there was a lot of extra filling left. I would only make 1/2 the filling recipe next time. The filling was a mix of maraschino cherries and orange juice as the main components. The orange juice helped to cut the sweetness of the cherries but I would actually add some orange pulp or even some more cherries as I felt the filling was too thin and could not put as much as I wanted before it ran off the bottom cookie. The cookies also took a bit longer to bake than the recipe called for but that could be because they were thicker. The taste test: very good and would be especially good with tea. Guido especially liked the crispness of the cookies. I hope they are still crisp tomorrow!!

Mary's Sugar Cookies

The good news is that the trade winds are back so it was much nicer to be baking without the excessive heat and humidity. The bad news is that the Red Sox are out of post-season play. Oh well, there is always next year! This recipe is similar to the previous recipe but calls for powdered sugar instead of granulated sugar and a bit of almond flavoring in addition to the vanilla. Whether it was the weather or the recipe, this dough was easier to roll and transfer to the baking sheet. Each cookie was supposed to be 1/16th of an inch but there was no way to make them that thin. I did the best I could which was about 1/8th to 1/4 inch thick. They had to cook a bit longer also and I found that keeping them in until more of the cookie was golden brown than just the edges was also helpful to keep them on the crunchy side. Of the two kinds of sugar cookies, both Guido and I liked this recipe the best---more flavor!

Ethel's Sugar Cookies

This is the first of the rolled cookie section. Having made this type of cookie many times during holiday time (the only kind for kids to decorate!) I knew what was in store with the very, very hot and humid weather we are having. Making the dough was easy but rolling it out, cutting out shapes and transferring them to the cookie sheet was much more challenging. I had to use a lot of flour on the counter and the rolling pin to keep the dough from sticking. Even with that, it was hard to get the cookies up and onto the baking sheet. Oh well...I have a feeling this will not be my favorite time of this challenge! Guido says the cookies are good but I find them a bit boring.

Refrigerator Filled Cookies

The last of the refrigerator cookies!!! This recipe does not make very many cookies because there are two pieces of dough required per cookie. The recipe also doesn't make very much dough to begin with! So, there will not be enough cookies for the UH people to taste and for that I am very sorry especially since Guido says these are very, very good. They are filled with an apricot/walnut filling and have a moderately crispy texture which is perfect. However, it is very hot and humid here so they will get soft very quickly. Oh well......the joys of baking in Hawaii! Thanks to Guido for scanning all the recipes in the previous post!