The toaster oven. A fun and useful distraction—no, what I really meant was contraption, invention, a helpful assistant to your inner culinary child—during these strange times. No, seriously, the toaster oven rocks. My Oster came with a timer (up to 30 minutes), and there’s really no preheat time required, as opposed to those full-size thingies.
Shortbread. I know what you’re thinking, Covid-15, not Covid-19: how am I ever going to jog, run, or huff and puff all those extra pounds off, blow them all down, whilst wearing my dainty face mask.
But seriously, this one’s different. This is chock full of nuts, namely, pistachios and cashews. And real maple syrup. And a splash of vanilla extract. And flour. And butter, lots of butter, of course. (You can use plant butter instead if you wish, although I haven’t tried it myself.)
The basic recipe. Let’s start with that. If you have a handy dandy kitchen scale (for the 4 oz each of nuts), this is going to be easy and fun. If not, just wing it and hope for the best.
This recipe initially was just pistachio shortbread. The first time I made it, I didn’t even use flour. It was tasty, but it wasn’t quite the right texture. Then I decided to try about half nuts (pistachios,initially) and half flour. The trick is to add enough flour to the mix so that it thickens to a considerable degree, even at room temperature. (I buy the pistachios already shelled, BTW.)
So here’s the skinny, so to speak, on the “plain vanilla” style of pistachio cashew shortbread:
Heat the butter in a covered saucepan, at low heat, gradually adding and stirring in the maple syrup and the vanilla extract. Once the butter is nearly melted, turn the heat off and let cool.
After the butter mix has cooled down to room temperature or so, stir in the ground pistachios and cashews. Gradually stir in the flour—it maybe more or less than a cup, you have to play it by ear—until it becomes sufficiently harder to stir. Keep in mind that you will refrigerate the mix afterward and that it will firm up even more.
If you’re using a wooden spoon, there should be quite a bit of resistance before you refrigerate the mix. And if, after you’ve refrigerated it, let’s say, overnight, or at least for a few hours, when you try to spoon it out, it should be relatively hard to do so.
So now you’re ready to prove that you’re pastry chef extraordinaire. Strut your stuff! You know you can!
Did I mention that you need the pan that came with your handy dandy toaster oven? Did I mention that you need parchment paper? I don’t use a rolling pin, personally, but some might.
In any case, what you need to do is to spoon that tasty mix, which should have hardened to a considerable degree, onto a doublesize sheet of parchment paper, in the shape of a log. So, you place scoops of the mix on the parchment paper, lengthwise, so that it’s roughly an inch thick, and then you gradually roll the parchment paper back and forth until it becomes cylindrical, like a log of deliciousness.
I usually take an extra step, that of refrigerating the parchment paper-encased log for a few hours, or even overnight.
When your log is ready for action, what you will do is to slice off slices that are roughly half an inch thick. These should be carefully placed on a piece of parchment paper the size of that pan that came with your beautiful toaster oven. And the paper, of course, rests on that selfsame pan.
Use your judgment, but in my experience, you should be able to fit around 5-8 cookies on the paper-covered pan.
Now comes the step where you can decide whether your shortbread mix was thick enough or not. (If it isn’t thick enough, your cookies will all run together, covering the whole pan. In which case, next time add more flour. In future attempts, repeat the process until you get it right.)
I hope you have a unit with a timer, because that makes this so much easier. Set the unit at 325°F for 10 minutes. If you do happen to have a timer, once the bell goes off, you can just relax for a while and let your soon-to-be masterpiece cool off. In either case, before continuing, flip each of the cookies over.
So then, the second round, on the flip side, will also be at 325°F for 10 minutes. Let cool once again.
At this point, if you think the texture seems to be roughly that of shortbread, you may just want to let those cookies cool down in the closed toaster oven. But if you’d like some extra browning and/or crispness, you should flip the cookies back to the original side, and then bake for another 5 minutes at 375°F. Let cool sufficiently before tasting, or refrigerating for later indulgence.
For other tasty variations, stay tuned to DrBobOpEd.
Enjoy!