Coffee Shortbread with Many Options

By Bevi

April 17, 2011

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Author Notes: Working with a recipe credited to Dixie Terry, I made some changes to the ingredient deck, but I did have some fun with the decorating. The secret I found to working with this dough is to cream the butter and sugars very well before adding the flour in incremental amounts. After re-rolling the dough several times after using a 2-inch cookie cutter, I started to roll out circles of dough with rough edges, and sliced in pie shapes for a more rustic and thicker shortbread.

You can use this recipe to decorate the shortbread, as well as reheat the coffee-flavored white chocolate I made to spread over some of the cookies:

http://www.food52.com/recipes...

From scanning through the photos, you can see what fun I had on this dreary and chilly day. —Bevi

Makes: 30 to 40 cookies and wedges of shortbread

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons Fresh coarsely ground coffee
2 cups AP flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 ounces Premium semi-sweet bakers' chocolate
2 tablespoons Strong, hot coffee
1/2 cup toasted coconut, sweetened or unsweetened
1/4 cup fresh coarsely ground coffee

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a mixer, cream the butter with the sugars and 2 TBLS. of the ground coffee. Mix at least 5 minutes. Scrape down the mixture from the sides of the mixing bowl.
Mix together the flour and salt, and add to the creamed butter and sugars in 4 parts. Scrape the bowl each time before you add more flour.
Gather up the dough and pat into a disk. Place on a floured surface, flour your rolling pin, and roll out dough to no less than 1/4" thick. Use a 2-inch round cookie cutter and with a thin spatula place the cookie rounds on an ungreased flat baking sheet.
Gather the dough, roll out again, and repeat Step 3.
Gather the dough again, and roll out the dough in a rough circle to 1/2-inch thickness. This time, treat as a pie, and cut slices with roughened edges that will naturally occur.
Place cookie sheets in the oven. The round cookies will be ready in approx. 15 to 17 minutes. The rustic pie-shaped shortbreads might take 17 to 20 minutes. Take cookies out of oven and immediately work on melting the chocolate.
Using Amanda and Merrill's method to melt the chocolate, microwave the semi-sweet chocolate and immediately stir in the hot coffee. Stir until the chocolate becomes ganache-like in consistency.
Now the fun part begins. Using an icing spatula, spread some of the ganache on the cookies. Then sprinkle the cookies with toasted coconut, or ground coffee, or both.
Note: You can use the white chocolate covered Marcona Almonds from a previous recipe I submitted for this contest to decorate, as well as any reheated leftover coffee-flavored melted white chocolate.