Oh, these are so delicious.
Loathe to waste the six egg yolks leftover from our Mother’s Day pavlova, I used them to make two batches of our shortbread freezer cookie dough. I froze seven of the eight logs, but left one in the fridge to experiment with.
The following morning, I let the roll come to room temperature, then kneaded some very finely chopped crystallised ginger and bake-stable chocolate pieces into the dough. I tried to make the inclusions as small as possible, to allow for a cleanly sliced cookie. The dough was then reshaped into a log and popped back into the fridge to firm up, before slicing and baking in a 160C (fan) oven for 18 minutes.
The end result is a moreishly crisp shortbread, with distinguishable bursts of flavour. The bake-stable chocolate – the Callebaut baking sticks shown below – hold their shape in the oven, and as a result the cookies kept their variegated appearance, rather than being dotted with oozing melted chocolate chunks (which is usually a good thing, but not what I wanted in this case).
If you haven’t tried the shortbread cookie dough, I hope you’ll give it a go. The original post is here, and I’ve updated it to include cup measures and a printable version.
The shortbread is quite easy to make, providing you have a large mixer, and the frozen logs are a useful standby to keep in the freezer. The dough is endlessly adaptable and makes a fantastic emergency gift or treat – you can have freshly baked cookies on the table within half an hour!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 