twd: hungarian shortbread with rose hip jam

 and with the blink of an eye, it is tuesday with dorie time again.  this weeks adventure, hungarian shortbread, is hosted by lynette of 1 small kitchen and cher of the not so exciting adventures of a dabbler.  shortbread, seems easy enough, right.  not according to the recipe.  the headnote warns us that shortbread can be tough to work with and that luckily for us, this easy recipe will save us.  well, i have made many batches of shortbread and while it can be tricky in a warm kitchen, i would not say it is tough to work with.  this recipe is unusual in that the dough is frozen and then grated into the pan.  hard to believe, but true.

i made my dough the night before and froze it.  then i cut it in half and grated half into my baking pan.  since there is just the two of us, i opted to just make a half batch and i baked it in a pie plate.

 looks like grated cheese-nachos anyone???

 i sneaked a peak at the chatter page and the consensus seemed to be that baking the bottom crust was necessary.  i trooped on in full force and pre baked the bottom.

 the recipe called for making a rhubarb jam or using something store bought-i opted for store bought and used a jar of rose hip jam that has been in the fridge for a while.

next up, the rest of the dough is grated over the jam

into the oven it went.  over all, the bottom needs to be pre baked and the top takes a while to get nice and golden brown.

 dressed up with powdered sugar and ready for tea.  my opinion-a lot of work for something that wasn't very much like short bread to me.  i did not get any of the sandy-flaky texture that i like in a shortbread.  it was very buttery and the bottom just did not want to bake; it stayed a little doughy even though it was much darker than the top layer.  would i make it again?  maybe but i would definitely skip the grating and just spread it into a pan.  as for the top-i say crumb topping!!!  see you in two weeks with our next baking adventure.  if you would like the recipe, visit the blog pages of our hosts, lynette and cher, or better yet, buy the book!