Okay, food bloggers, I know we’ve all had our mishaps in the kitchen — flat cookies, sunken cakes, burnt casseroles, tough chicken… It happens to the best of us. Do you guys blog about them anyway? Since most of us are home-cooks, it only seems natural that when we make mistakes, we should share them with each other. Nobody is perfect, not even the greatest chefs in the world. I’ve had a few really awful baking experiences that I’ve refrained from blogging about. Looking back, I kind of wish I had documented those mistakes, so I would never make them again. Oh well, I can always start now. I made shortbread cookies recently that seemed completely doomed. Thankfully I saved them in the end, but you should have seen my kitchen counter…
Yeah…that happened. I have no idea why the dough didn’t actually become firm. It stayed crumbly, even after being in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. I even tried putting it into the freezer. But nope, that dough did not want to do anything except make a mess. Ugh. I think I was more upset that I used my Trader Joe’s Speculoos Cookie Butter in the recipe and if these cookies didn’t work out, I was wasting a precious ingredient! So you’re supposed to roll the dough into a log in wax paper and then, when it’s firm, slice it horizontally. That all sounds easy, in theory. The way this was looking, though, there was no way I’d be able to this. I didn’t have wax paper, so I used plastic wrap… Is that why this happened?? Someone let me know!
So this crumbly mess of cookie dough and chocolate chips is staring back at me, begging me to save it. My “aha! moment” came. Of course this was a simple fix, but I was so stuck on following the recipe that I forgot sometimes you just need to step off that straight line and zigzag your way through. It might not be the way you originally planned to get to the end, but it’ll still get you there.
I took the crumbs and rolled them into little balls, smushing the dough until it stuck together. I really had to work at each of the cookie balls to keep them from falling apart, but pretty soon I finally had a sheet of cookies ready to bake!
Cookie Butter Shortbread Cookies
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup Speculoos Cookie Butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/3 cup Speculoos Cookie Butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup chocolate chips
Cream together the butter and cookie butter. Mix in the vanilla.
Add in the flour, powdered sugar and salt and mix until dough comes together. It will be crumbly.
Stir in the chips by hand. On wax paper, set the dough down the middle and roll into a log. Chill the dough for several hours.
After your dough has chilled, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. (*If you’re dough came out normally and you’re actually able to complete these steps, go for it! Otherwise, skip ahead for my version). Unroll the dough and slice pieces horizontally.
OR
Unroll the crumbles and roll into balls, pushing the dough together to ensure it stays firm.
Bake for 12-15 minutes.
PS: They came out really good too! You would have never known they were almost doomed if I didn’t tell you the back story.
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