When it’s very cold and snowy outside, you want your house to feel warm and comforting inside. A fire in the fireplace is great along with nice thick socks, but what I find I really need is something baking in the oven. If it’s a serious snow you can get quite ambitious, but for an afternoon with flurries you’ll want to bake cookies. They should be cookies that are a snap to make, don’t have to cool very long (obviously), plus cookies should always feel like a special treat. A snowy afternoon is a good fit for shortbread. I’m not sure that shortbread officially qualifies as a cookie, but its close enough for me.
I love both making and eating shortbread- it’s the one, two, three of baking: first a cup of sugar, then a cup of butter, finally two cups of flour and you’re done. This is great for a person who rarely takes a lot of care measuring ingredients – should you happen to know such a person (me). After that anything you add is simply creative genius. I’ve added, at different times, lavender, rosemary, caraway seeds, almonds, peanut butter, and even Parmesan cheese. Experiments include dipping in chocolate and substituting cornstarch for half of the flour for a finer texture. I have to say all of those things are delicious additions, but plain shortbread stands just fine on it’s own. Plain shortbread was the original plan, as I stood at the counter looking around in case inspiration was lurking behind some random kitchen appliance. I was drinking tea, Chai tea because it was warm and spicy. And voilà -there it was – inspiration in a teapot.
I made Chai spiced shortbread throwing in salted pistachios, quickly toasted, at the last minute because their Middle Eastern origin seemed a perfect fit for the spices in Chai tea. I really did make this using a tea out of a teabag. It may sound completely weird but I swear this is my best experiment yet. All ingredients went in the food processor then into the baking dish and the shortbread was oven ready before the oven had even finished preheating. Some friends dropped by just as the shortbread finished baking and were truly lulled into contentment on this very cold day by the scent alone.
The taste, well, you have to make Chia Spiced Pistachio Shortbread to believe it – crumbly, buttery, the perfect texture – spicy, nutty – gone! Yep, we ate them all in one afternoon. But here’s the thing, it’s getting dark, and it’s still a little snowy – not too late to make one more batch.
Chia Spiced Pistachio Shortbread
Ingredients
¼ cup pistachios
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter cut in pieces
2 cups flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp Chai tea – loose or from a teabag
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Lightly toast pistachios in a small skillet over medium high heat, about 3 minutes.
Add pistachios to the food processor and give them a couple of quick pulses. You want big pieces, but not whole pistachios.
Remove pistachios from food processor.
Add sugar, butter, flour, salt, and tea to processor and blend to form a crumbly dough.
Add pistachios and pulse to incorporate.
Press dough into and 8 x 8 baking dish and prick the top with a fork.
Bake for about 30 minutes until lightly browned.
Try to wait patiently for about 15 minutes for it to cool enough to cut in squares.
