The Startup Cook – Chocolate Shortbread Cookies with Mint Glazing

Remember those friends, colleagues, relatives who have been promising to visit you for the past six months? Of course they must turn up, unannounced, THIS month BEFORE the year ends to fulfil those sworn words.  While this of course is an inconvenience, leave the self-loath aside this month and remedy the situation with this superb recipe.

This particular cookie recipe besides being gloriously delicious, maintains a dual purpose. Like regular biscuits you can serve it with a cup of tea or coffee, OR you can serve it as dessert! The mint glaze (adapted from Taste of Home), adds a chic touch to this regular shortbread cookies and enhances it to a stiffer version of After-Eight. YUM!

A minty treat for those dilly dallying guests may be too generous. But do remember (in Cliff Richards own words) it’s the “time to rejoice in the good that we see”.

Ingredients

Shortbread Cookies
1 cup of all-purpose flour + 1 tbs of flour (for kneading)
1/3 cup of cocoa powder
1/3 cup of sugar
1 egg
8 tbs of butter
1 tsp of vanilla

Glaze

1 cup of icing sugar
2tbs of butter
3 tbs of milk
1 tsp of mint essence
Green food colouring

Directions

Preheat the oven to 160 Celsius. Prepare a baking sheet and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the butter and sugar until it becomes light and fluffy.

Sift the cocoa in to the mixture, add the flour (1 cup) to it and combine gently.

Add the egg, vanilla and whisk until all ingredients are well incorporated.

Knead the dough in to a ball, wrap it with some cling film and refrigerate for an hour.

Lightly flour (with the tablespoon of flour) the surface of a wooden chopping block and place the cool dough on it.

Take a rolling pin and roll out the dough to a ½ inch – to 1 inch thickness.

Use a cookie cutter and cut out the dough in to circles.

Place the circles on to the prepared sheet and bake for 10 minutes (rotate in between).

After the cookies are baked, take it out of the oven and transfer on to a cooling rack.

Glaze

Add the icing sugar and butter in to a saucepan.

Place the saucepan on a low heat.

Add the milk, mint essence, a few drops of food colouring to the mixture and whisk.

Whisk until all the ingredients are well combined and thickened.

Once the glaze has formed take it off the heat and pour over the cookies.

Disasters, Warnings and Tips

BEWARE! Once you take the glaze off the heat, it stiffens pretty quickly.

It’s easier to work with cool dough, hence the refrigeration.

My cookie cutter was a coffee lid.

Tis the season to be ill… Gah!

It really depends on your cutter, but I made about 16 - 20 cookies with my coffee lid.

Food colouring is optional of course.

Upgrade this cookie by drizzling some melted chocolate over the mint glaze.

The sugar you use for the shortbread should be superfine.

Christmas is almost here. YAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!

Since the glaze is pretty sweet, I kept the shortbread sugar level to 1/3 cup. Feel free to increase it if you like.

Clearly I’m not a neat glaze spreader.

By Shazzana Hamid