Raspberry Filled Almond Shortbread Cookies

I've made these Raspberry Shortbread Cookies several times and I'm always amazed by their tender texture and delicate balance of almond, butter and berry flavors. Delicious.

The only thing I don't like about these cookies is how much they spread! The edges thin during baking and turn brown and crisp. From an visual point of view the brown edges aren't very appealing, so I trim them away using a knife or cookie cutter. But don't throw the crispy scraps away! They make a great topping for ice cream.



Any suggestions on how to stop these cookies from spreading? I've tried re-chilling the raw cookie dough balls after filling them with jam but that didn't help.

I've baked them on aluminum pans, baking stones, on parchment paper and silpat, but they spread everytime.

HELP!

But regardless of the spreading phenomenon, they taste darn good.

Raspberry Patch Crumb Bars

The temperatue outside is on the rise, so it must be raspberry picking time. I "pick" my raspberries at Sam's Club. Ha, ha, ha. No bugs, no snakes, just a polite swipe of my credit card at the check-out counter and away I go.

Today's offering is from a recipe I found on the Taste of Home web site: Raspberry Patch Crumb Bars. The crust in this recipe was a little different from what I'm used to: you cut shortening into the flour instead of butter. What?! No butter?! I don't know if I'm gonna like this....


Here are the eggs going in. Don't those yolks look bright? I've been using Egg Land's Best lately, and I really notice a difference in taste.


Here is the crust batter going into the pan. I found that the shortening produced a sticky dough, it wasn't "crumbly" in the least. I even added more flour trying to dry it out some, but I never achieved a good texture.



Aren't the raspberries beautiful? The recipe says to toss them with sugar and starch and spread over the crust. Word of WARNING: TASTE your raspberry/sugar mixture to see if it is sweet enough!!! The berries I used were so tart (lip puckering tart) they almost ruined the whole batch of cookies. I had to coat the finished bars with a thick layer of confectioner's sugar to counter the tartness.

Here is the pan right before it goes into the oven. See how lumpy the crumble looks. It's more like cookie dough than crumble. I know, I know, I'm obsessed with the crumble, but it just doesn't look right.


The finished product. The raspberries look bright and refreshing, and oh so summery.


And the crumble?

It looks okay, doesn't it?

It doesn't look lumpy, does it?

Please lie to me and tell me my crumble doesn't look lumpy.

Empire Cookies

I stumbled across a blog called The Canadian Baker and after one glance my heart started to thump and drool puddled in my mouth. Empire Cookies. What was this??? Raspberry jam sandwiched between two crisp sugar cookies and topped with almond glaze and candied cherries. Yummm….


I immediately revised my mental "Baking To Do" list and placed Empire Cookies in the number one slot. How had this delightful little cookie escaped my notice all these years? I couldn't wait for the weekend so I could bake up a batch and see if they tasted as good as they looked (oh please, please, please……).

Well they DID!!!! (Taste as good as it looked, that is.)

The dough was a breeze to mix up, and the rolling and cutting went fine. I did have to add a little more flour to keep the dough from sticking to the rolling pin (stupid New Orleans humidity), but the added flour didn't affect the overall taste at all. Baking was a snap too. 10 minutes exactly. The cookies didn't spread, so you can pile a bunch on your cookie tray. Less oven time, less clean-up time, and more cookie munching time.

To ice the cookies I borrowed a tip from a reviewer on RecipeZaar and thinned the icing more that the recipe directs. Then just dip the cookie into the icing rather than spreading it. Dip, swirl, next, dip, swirl, next. Assembly line quick and it gives you a super smooth finish to the dried icing.


To finish off the cookie, the recipe (and British tradition) calls for a candied cherry to be placed on top. I was all out of candied cherries (ha, ha, ha), so I put the kid's gummy fruit on top. Is that tacky? I'm sure The Queen would not approve. I guess I'll have to call them Trailer Park Cookies rather than Empire Cookies.