Ukulele Shortbread

Well, these cookies have taken a lot longer than I planned due to a lot of recipe testing and weird chocolate-related problems. But I finally got it all sorted out and I'm happy with them :D.

Right now I have this big desire to learn the ukulele, which is strange since I'm not really a musical person. Not to say I didn't try. I played piano for most of my life, but since I really don't like classical music, it never became a big passion of mine. I tried the flute for a while, but that really didn't work out from, well, a lack of skill. Neither did the recorder nor the harmonica. But I think all my recent dreams of lounging on a tropical island (due to a summer stuck inside taking classes and filling out med school secondaries) has gotten to me.

While I usually don't enjoy instrumental music (ie. music with no words), I find myself feeling relaxed when I hear ukulele music; the mellowness is just infectious. I think it's a combination of liking the sound of the instrument itself and the image of the beach and palm trees that automatically pop up in my mind through association. Thus, I was inspired to make ukelele cookies. They're basically chocolate-dipped shortbread, but fancily ukulele-shaped.

P.S. Anyone play the ukulele? Do you have any advice for learning how to play? How difficult would it be to teach myself to play?

Red Velvet Shortbread Fireplaces

Hope you all had a great New Years! I can't believe it's 2011 already. To continue with my holiday cookie posts, today I have a recipe for Red Velvet Shortbread Fireplaces.

Since people make and decorate gingerbread houses all the time, I thought it'd be interesting to switch it up a little and just decorate a certain part of the house: the fireplace. I mean in real life many people really do decorate their fireplaces for the holidays, whether it's with stockings, holly, wreaths, or holiday lights. I decided to keep it simple with just a string of lights and a small fire :).

Caramel Surprises

Today I'll be sharing a recipe for Caramel Suprises. After making those cookies filled with peanut butter cups last time, I got the urge to make more stuffed cookies. I seem to be getting fond of this type of cookie that has a little something unexpected hidden inside.



Caramel, chocolate, and shortbread just work. The slightly melted chocolate, the perfectly gooey caramel, and the buttery sandy shortbread: three very different textures and tastes that turn each bite of the seemingly simple cookie into an exciting experience for the taste buds. Plus, they're pretty darn cute with the slight dusting of cocoa powder and powdered sugar.

Next time you have a bag of chocolate covered caramels, definitely try these out. They aren't difficult to make; the dough ended up pretty easy to shape around the candies. And the chocolate around the caramel adds another element of surprise to the cookies with no extra work on your part. Rather than just shortbread and caramel, it becomes shortbread surrounding caramel surrounding chocolate.

Sweetheart Shortbread

Sometimes I just have the urge to have something sweet, but not too sweet. It's times like these when this recipe, which produces a light cookie with a bit of a crunch, comes in handy.

I've made this recipe many times already, each time giving the cookies a different look. The first time I made the cookies, I followed the recipe exactly and made even rectangles with rows of holes made by a fork, which was definitely the quickest and simplest method. Last time I made them, I rolled the dough out very thinly so that I could use my Williams-Sonoma animal cracker cookie cutters.

This time, I wanted yet another change. From the colors of the cookies, you can sort of tell that I was inspired by those Sweetheart Conversation Hearts that are so popular on V-Day. I thought it'd be cute to have colorful heart cookies, so I mixed food coloring into the dough and cut my cookies out with my trusty heart cookie cutter. The cookies came out of the oven cute and puffy, a wonderful post-Valentine's Day delight.