Tuesday, December 4, 2012 | Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Times
Family Christmas RECIPE
Writer fails at baking exchanges Maple shortbread cookies
Kathy Booth, a goodintentioned Christmas baker, showed off her maple shortbread cookies.
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Ingredients: 1 cup butter 1 egg yolk ½ cup pure maple sugar 2 cups unbleached flour Place oven racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Cream softened butter. Stir in the maple sugar and egg yolk. Add flour, a little at a time, stirring until the mixture is too stiff to work with a spoon. Turn out onto a floured surface and gently knead, adding a little flour at a time, just until dough begins to crack at the edges. Gently flatten the dough and then roll it out to ¼ inch with a rolling pin. Cut into shapes and place on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle a little maple sugar on top of each cookie. Bake 10 minutes or until delicately golden at edges. Some hints: The number of cookies depends on the size and shape of the cookie cutters. The cookies are more melt-in-the-mouth if the dough is handled lightly. Use coconut sugar instead of maple for a more exotic flavour. –Kathy Booth TIMES columnist
athy Booth is a “good intentions” Christmas baker… with bad time management skills. “Every year, as Christmas approaches, I head to the market and lovingly purchase the finest ingredients with which to bake all sorts of traditional Christmas goodies – mince tarts, Turkish delight, Christmas fruit cake, ruiskis,” explained Booth. This kind of baking never happens, admitted the author of Early Start, a monthly early childhood education column in The TIMES. “The nuts and dried fruit, the mince, the extra butter, walnut paste, and whipping cream remain tucked in the fridge.” Needless to say, she fails miserably at participating in Christmas baking exchanges. “The ‘ooh, I really want to do some Christmas baking’ urge comes from fond memories of childhood, when my mom baked enough mince tarts, Turkish delight, and shortbread cookies for us six kids and anyone else who might stop by,” Booth recalled. “I don’t know how she did it all. At the time, the lowly shortbread cookie was on my long list of things not worth eating. In my childish opinion, there was nothing remotely interesting about them.” Her appreciation for the simple shortbread cookie has grown in direct contrast to her ability to complete any other type of Christmas baking. The recipe, originally gleaned from a decades old copy of A Guide to Good Cooking by Five Roses Flour, is so simple and quickly made, even she’s convinced she can get it baked in time for Christmas. Over the years, she has played with the ingredients. “It adapts well,” she said, noting that the original recipe calls for icing sugar and ¼ teaspoon of fresh ground nutmeg. She uses maple sugar instead for what she called a distinctly Canadian flavour. “These are also a great cookie to bake with kids,” Booth said. “Wishing you Merry Christmas and bon appetit!”