Shortbread & QuickJams

We made shortbread the other day. My gran was famous for her shortbread, and instilled in me a love of the stuff. 

Gran never shared her recipe though; she was of a generation whose women guarded their recipes jealously as the trade secrets of their personal and social success. So when I'm in the mood for shortbread, I look at the recipes in Joy of Cooking, Bittman's How to Cook Everything, the Bon Appetit Cookbook, and Regan Daley's In the Sweet Kitchen, which has several good ones.

I love experimenting, so I usually make a hybrid of several recipes plus whatever substitutions or additions take my fancy. Shortbread is a recipe with latitude—it bears additions and substitutions well—which is a bonus for those of us who like to get creative, and a blessing if you're missing an ingredient. Although shortbread relies on ingredients that are common in my house—flour, butter, sugar and salt—on the odd occasion we're out of something, so it's convenient that each ingredient has a couple of substitution options. Because of its flexibility, shortbread is a good option for spontaneous baking.

Shortbread also has latitude in difficulty and fussiness. You can get perfectionist with it, but you don't have to. It's pretty kid-friendly too—you can let the kids measure and mix, hoping they don't eat all the dough, but not worried if they eat some. 

Each person can take a portion of the dough once it's mixed and create their own work of art. They might like to:

• Add a flavouring such as a salt, herb, spice, essence or nuts.
• Etch the top of the dough. Use a pointy object to create art or to make "cut here" lines.
• Decorate the dough using food coloring or cake decorations.

I had made apple butter and a plum quickjam earlier that day, so I jazzed up the shortbread with little dollops. The combination was amazing. And maybe healthy, or am I just kidding myself?

Watch your plate; this dessert disappears quickly.

 

Recipes
You can make both recipes quickly* and with almost any amount of fruit. It's a good way to:

• Use up older fruit that's still good but no longer pretty
• Deal with "little kid leftovers"; residuals of smaller children, who typically can't eat an entire fruit at once
• Quickly add home-cooked deliciousness to any meal, snack or dessert. I've added these butters and quickjams to salads, vegetables, yogurt, ice cream, toast, stews and meat dishes. 

* (2-3 minutes for cutting; 10-20 minutes on the stove. You can instead push it to the back of the stove and cook it on low for a longer time, if that suits you better. Just be careful not to forget it because once the water's cooked off, everything burns very quickly. Set a timer!)

Apple Butter
Cut apples into chunks, remove seeds.
Place in saucepan, cover with water.
Simmer until liquid is absorbed, occasionally stirring and mashing the fruit.
(You can add sugar, salt, honey, other fruits, herbs, or essences as it cooks. Flavours added earlier in the cooking process will intensify and blend with the fruit.)

Plum QuickJam
Remove pits from plums.
Place plums in saucepan, cover with water.
Add 2 T sugar.
Simmer gently until liquid is absorbed, occasionally stirring and mashing fruit. If you want thicker jam, add more sugar (to taste) gradually during cooking time.
(You can add sugar, honey, other fruits, herbs, essences, etc to taste).

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