[Recipe] Skibo Castle Ginger Crunch
Oct. 4th, 2009 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitchenklutzNot much going on the past week -- between work and hobbies I haven't made the time to cook all that much that's new and interesting. Weekends, however, are when I have time to actually experiment a bit more. I'd snagged a bunch of cookie recipes and printed them out Friday at work, and decided to start experimenting with at least a few yesterday morning.
The first one I made was
Skibo Castle Ginger Crunch
Ingredients
Shortbread base:
* 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces
Topping:
* 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
* 1 tablespoon Lyle's Golden Syrup (British cane sugar syrup) (lacking this rather exotic substance, I substituted maple syrup instead)
* 1 cup confectioner's sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Method
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 13-by-9-inch metal (or glassware) baking pan.
2. Make shortbread base: Sift together dry ingredients and blend in butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Press evenly into bottom of pan (base will be thin). Bake in middle of oven until golden and crisp, 20 to 25 minutes.
3. Make topping just before shortbread is done: Melt butter in a small saucepan and whisk in remaining ingredients until smooth. Bring to a boil and simmer, stirring, approximately 30 seconds.
4. Remove shortbread from oven and pour topping over, tilting pan to cover shortbread as evenly as possible. Cool in pan on a rack, then cut into small rectangles (recommended: 6 rows lengthwise and 6 crosswise).
I adapted this recipe from the Good Morning America Food & Recipes page. Sad to say, overall I wasn't particularly impressed by it. The shortbread base seemed rather bland, and far too dry and crumbly for my tastes -- but maybe that's just the nature of shortbread. It wasn't in any way crunchy, really, and I expected it to be given the name of the recipe.
The ginger-maple taste of the topping is pleasantly sweet and elevates the recipe from mediocre to OK.
Overall rating, 3/5 -- I probably won't make it all too often, given that I can make tastier cookies for about the same amount of effort with similar ingredients, but at least this is a simple and straightforward snack recipe.
The first one I made was
Skibo Castle Ginger Crunch
Ingredients
Shortbread base:
* 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces
Topping:
* 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
* 1 tablespoon Lyle's Golden Syrup (British cane sugar syrup) (lacking this rather exotic substance, I substituted maple syrup instead)
* 1 cup confectioner's sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Method
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 13-by-9-inch metal (or glassware) baking pan.
2. Make shortbread base: Sift together dry ingredients and blend in butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Press evenly into bottom of pan (base will be thin). Bake in middle of oven until golden and crisp, 20 to 25 minutes.
3. Make topping just before shortbread is done: Melt butter in a small saucepan and whisk in remaining ingredients until smooth. Bring to a boil and simmer, stirring, approximately 30 seconds.
4. Remove shortbread from oven and pour topping over, tilting pan to cover shortbread as evenly as possible. Cool in pan on a rack, then cut into small rectangles (recommended: 6 rows lengthwise and 6 crosswise).
I adapted this recipe from the Good Morning America Food & Recipes page. Sad to say, overall I wasn't particularly impressed by it. The shortbread base seemed rather bland, and far too dry and crumbly for my tastes -- but maybe that's just the nature of shortbread. It wasn't in any way crunchy, really, and I expected it to be given the name of the recipe.
The ginger-maple taste of the topping is pleasantly sweet and elevates the recipe from mediocre to OK.
Overall rating, 3/5 -- I probably won't make it all too often, given that I can make tastier cookies for about the same amount of effort with similar ingredients, but at least this is a simple and straightforward snack recipe.
