When It Snows, I Bake

Something about the snow spurs me on to baking. I assume it's a primal instinct to start storing fat and these little babies will do the job right. Deploying a stick and one half of butter, this is my first attempt at shortbread. I've been a shortbread fan my whole life but never bothered to try it myself.

My eldest son has been working his way through a very large cookie cookbook that I received as a Secret Santa gift years ago. He tried making the butter cookies on the facing page to this recipe. He found his cookies to be just a bit bland, and, the shortbread turned out to be a little bland also. Looks lovely, though, and the texture was brilliant.

Here, I've deployed my new shortbread pan to make these nice, chunky rectangles. The tops browned nicely from cooking in the buttered heavy iron pan. Next time, we will deploy a bit of salt since all my favorite desserts balance their sweetness with savoriness (or bitterness.) But, no worries. I take each new experience as my first of many tries.

Thank goodness I escaped the house to hit the treadmill at the gym before the snow started . For those of you keeping score at home, one of these golden brown, crumbly rectangles can be had for the price of 2 miles at 9:00/mi. From the look of the snow still piling up in my driveway, I will be making room for at least one more tomorrow.