Butter and Sugar and Flour (*oh my*)!

Let me start off this blog by airing my nerdy-excitement and announcing that I saw my first famous person in real life today! Phillip Seymour-Hoffman was sitting one table away from me at lunch... wow! I probably got so excited because I love his movies, but I have to admit, I was a little disappointed in myself for getting so "giggly". I tried to sneak a phone pic, but I failed. It was blurry, as were my White Sox "perfect game" phoone photos. I really need a better phone.

Anyways.

Shortbread hearts!
I am way behind on posting, as these cookies are long gone and from last week, but I must say they did turn out tasting much better than I had expected. This one is another Martha Stewart recipe (you can go here to get it http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/chocolate-dipped-shortbread-hearts) and everything seemed to be ok- except the dough was too dry. I think next time I might reduce the flour from 2 cups to 1 3/4 to see how it turns out. You also roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface, which I'm sure dried it up even more.

The recipe is relatively easy, and you don't need a ton of ingredients. At first I thought they could do without the chocolate, but (like most cookies) they tasted way better after the first day, and the chocolate really proved the perfect compliment to the shortbread flavor.

About to mix the flour and salt in...

The biggest trouble the dry dough really caused me was that it made some pretty ugly cookies. It was hard to roll out and cutting the cookies out was nearly impossible. The dough was stuck in the cookie cutters, the raw cookies were falling into pieces, my patience was wearing thin. Not a big deal in the end, but these ended up pretty sloppy looking. I'm guessing you can tell which the rack of the "I give up, just slop it on" cookies is.

If the cookies weren't such a dry, crumbly mess at this point, I would have been a little more meticulous with the dipping and decorating. I definitely ended up going with a more avant-garde look here.



*A note on this recipe. I found the chocolate to be a bit messy, as it never really hardened on the cookies. I'm wondering how leaving out the corn oil would affect it?

Today's project: Cinnamon bread! I will post later tonight or tomorrow on how it turned out... but my house is smelling pretty yummy right now!