A shortbread is my favourite type of biscuit. Mostly because I have a fail safe recipe that involves 3 ingredients and a food processor, but also because they are SO delicious!
My other favourite thing about shortbread is their versatility. Take the dough, press some of your favourite yummies into it, and hey presto – a totally different bikkie.
A combo I’ve been doing for a while now are my PIMP Dark Chocolate and Coconut Shortbread.
Through trial and error, I believe this to be one of the sexiest things you can do with shortbread dough. I love the bittersweet Lindt chocolate, the toasty shredded coconut and the hint of spice. Of course you must feel free to substitute your favourite chocolate, or whatever you’ve got in the cupboard. This recipe is very forgiving.
Dark Chocolate and Coconut Shortbread.
Ingredients:
1 batch of shortbread dough
75g Lindt 70% Cocoa Chocolate (The slimline 100g packet is best)
Cinnamon/Nutmeg/Mixed Spice
1-2 tabs of Macadamia Butter, or a nut butter of your choice
A handful of shredded coconut
Method:
Preheat your oven to 150 degrees Celsius. (That’s a moderately low heat for a reason. Shortbread cook best long and slow).
Certainly a food processor makes this whole recipe a breeze, but of course you can do it by hand-rubbing the cold butter into the flour and sugar, then mixing in the other yummies.
Using a large heavy knife, chop the chocolate into manageable chunks. Whilst it’s lovely to have decent size bit of melted chocolate in a cookie, if they’re too big they’ll potentially make rolling the cookie dough/cutting shapes very difficult.
Shake the desired amount of spice into your already-processed dough, or if you like you can pop it in with your dry ingredients at the beginning. This is totally optional, but I just adore the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg baking with the butter, chocolate and coconut.
Mix in the chopped chocolate and the shredded coconut. Roll the ball of dough around on a floured surface until all the extra ingredients are incorporated evenly. Glad wrap the dough and wack it in the fridge for 10-15 minutes, or in the freezer for 5.
With this dough having so many ‘bits’ in it, I find rolling little balls is the easiest way to bake them, with a little fork press to flatten. When I do plain shortbread I’ll often do large scored sheets of dough, or cut out shapes, but with these chunky bikkies it’s just too hard! Plus rolling balls is quick, and the quicker they get in the oven, the sooner you can eat them!
Pop them on the second-to-the-top tray of the oven on a lined flat tray. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until they are lightly browned and hold together when you lift the side gently with a spatula.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 20 minutes before transporting them directly to your mouth or a container.
Alternatively, leave them on the tray and clear a space in your freezer. Pop the tray with the hot cookies straight into the freezer for 5-10 minutes for rapid cooling. The metal helps conduct the cool temperature to the cookies faster than normal, even if the tray itself is quite hot going into the freezer. I use this trick when I’m last-minute baking for a friend and am desperately trying to get out of the house. Ie, every time I bake.
Enjoy, and let me know what other shortbread combinations you come up with! I recommend cranberry and pistachio, white chocolate and macadamia, the list goes on!
Xo AB