mascarpone | Jenna's Everything Blog

Once upon a time, I was in high school. I know–crazy! Can you believe it? My cousin June had just visited Scotland and was stopping by Spain to stay with us for a few days, and she brought with her Scottish Shortbread. It was in a beautiful tin with a tartan pattern on it. It was my first experience with shortbread: it started off with a crunch, and then melted in your mouth in all its buttery glory. I must learn how to make this stuff, I thought, and I couldn’t have been happier when Betty Crocker told me that I only needed 3 ingredients: butter, flour, and sugar.

Now this ‘traditional’ shortbread recipe with its 3 humble ingredients is the one I grew up with, so to speak. However, since my days as an innocent and bewildered youth, I’ve seen many other recipes for shortbread out there, and they include ingredients like powdered sugar and cornstarch. In order to delve into this baking mystery and conduct a thorough comparative analysis, I made a batch using this new-fangled variation of cornstarch and powdered sugar a few days after this first batch. Cookies were tested side by side. Clear consensus: the oldie is the goodie.

Ingredients

(makes about 32 cookies)

4 cups flour

2 cups butter, softened (4 sticks, or 1 lb.)

1 cup sugar

Optional: 1 package tiramisu mascarpone (mascarpone cheese mixed with coffee and sugar)

Do you ever remember to soften your butter? Because I don’t.

These 4 sticks softened on top of the stove, which was hot from the Buttery Beer Bread baking within the oven.

And on that note, do you ever remember to correct your white balance?

Apparently I didn’t, so get ready for a slew of bluish-greenish underexposed pictures. Just pretend I’m the Little Mermaid doing an under-the-sea baking lesson, and everything will feel much more natural.

Now: dump that butter into a large mixing bowl.

Add the sugar . . .

Oooh, it’s blue! Yes, the Color Balance Monster struck again when I wasn’t looking.

Keep thinking Little Mermaid!

Now cream the butter and sugar together.

Mix in the flour.

This won’t take long, just about a minute.

Grab the dough, plop it down on a counter, and work it with your hands until it’s well mixed. Now it’s all been easy so far, but working this dough will take the hand muscles of a champion.

See how the dough is kind of ‘cracking’? It took a lot of kneading and massaging to get it past this stage. Good luck! Take a breather if you need. It also helps to sing that song–you know the one. “What would I give if I could live out of these waters . . . what would I pay to spend a day warm on the sand . . . but up on land, I understand that they don’t reprimand their daughters . . . bright young women, sick of swimmin’, ready to staaaaaaaaand . . .”

C’mon, really belt it!

Yes, I know all the words to that song, and I would bet my buttons that some of you do too! ‘Fess up–didn’t you want to be Ariel, perched on a rock with a wave crashing behind you? No? You were more into quantum physics and memorizing the Constitution? You wanted to be an astronaut and your role model was Mother Theresa?

Well. Ehem. Okay.

But let’s not get caught up in an Ariel vs. Mother Theresa debate now–we’re here to bake!

So now! Roll the dough out with a rolling pin or smush out with your hands into about 1/2 inch thickness.

Cut out some cookie shapes.

Some of the cookies ended up waaaaay too thick:

So I simply schmooshed them down with my palm.

It’s so handy to have hands sometimes.

Keep rolling out the dough and cutting out cookies until all the dough has been used.

Then, take a brief pause to sing Vivaldi’s ‘Gloria.’ Or Sebastian’s ‘Under the Sea’ if we want to stay in keeping with our theme here. ” . . . each little crab here knows how to jam here, that’s why it’s hotter under the water . . . “

Place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet.

Optional: you can prick the cookies all over with the tines of a fork if you feel like making a pretty design.

Bake the little beauties at 350 for 20 minutes, until they’re getting a little golden (but barely so!).

Immediately remove them from the sheet and place them on a cooling rack.

As you can see, I made 1 batch of larger, fork-pricked cookies, and 1 batch of smaller unpricked cookies. The larger, thicker cookies were far superior–they retained some softness to them that just blew the littler guys away.

Oops! I spotted an imperfect one. Call in the marines!

It must be consumed immediately. If you’re feeling up for absolute decadence, grab a container of tiramisu mascarpone:

Slather a cookie with the contents, and die a happy person.

At a ripe old age, I mean! Don’t go dyin’ now!

Because there are cookies to be eaten.

Cookies to be stacked.

Cookies to be gazed upon.

My absolute favorite time to eat this cookies is in the morning. Preferrably, a Saturday morning in this chair:

With a Bible and a hot cup of coffee.

When the weather outside looks like this:

I can think of no better thing to do.

More sweet treats tomorrow, folks! I’ve got to get this baking impulse outta my system, and there’s no time like the present to rain down the recipes on you. Better color balance tomorrow, I promise!

Click here for printer-friendly version: Traditional Buttery Shortbread Cookies

I’ve been making this recipe for 5 years, since I was first married. I absolutely adore mushrooms, and will be posting another mushroom-alicious recipe very, very soon. This dish is great for large groups of people. I made it for our Bloomington Bible study back in the day, for my in-laws, for my own birthday one year, and for Family Vacay 2009, along with a salad. When I made it for family vacation, the grocery store up North was plumb out of mascarpone, so I substituted cream cheese and it was still delicious. It’s easy and rich, creamy and delightful–a total comfort food.

When I made it a few weeks ago in preparation for this blog post, my husband said:

“You know what would make this perfect?”

“What?” I asked, nervously thinking I had overseasoned, underseasoned, or maybe could have used a little more chopped sage, or salted the mushrooms more when I first put them in . . .

“Bacon,” he said.

So take note–please add chopped fried bacon bits for maximum man-satisfaction.

Ingredients

(Serves 5)

1 1/2 c dry mushrooms (porcini or shiitake)

1 1/4 c warm water

2 TBS butter

1 TBS oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

6 garlic cloves, minced

16 oz sliced white mushrooms

2 TBS chopped sage leaves, plus more for garnish

1 c dry white wine

8 oz mascarpone

5 oz (1 cup) crumbled gorgonzola

2 tsp cornstarch + 1 TBS water

12 oz dried pasta

Optional: diced fried bacon

Soak dried mushrooms 20-30 minutes in the 1 1/4 cups of warm water. I used shiitake mushrooms that I buy in large, cheap bags at the Asian grocery store:

I’ve had this stash of mushrooms for years. In my opinion, they can only be gaining flavor with age. Right? Right.

Don’t fear the wrinkly little dry guys. After a good long soak, they become plump and moist:

At this point, grab the rest of the ingredients. Chop the onion, garlic, and sage. Everything must be ready.

The mascarpone and gorgonzola–I could eat them both by the spoonful, people.

Isn’t the sage be-yewtiful? It’s such a soft and yet vibrant color. I love taking a chomp out of a leaf or two–bitter, but somehow refreshing.

Remove the soaking mushrooms from the liquid and squeeze them out–but save the soaking liquid! It’s important because it will add incredible flavor to the pasta. Chop the soaked mushrooms up nice and fine.

They need a little more chopping . . .

Zer ve go.

Put the pasta water on to boil, and salt it liberally.

Heat the oil and butter together over medium-high until the butter is melted. Add the onion and diced (previously dried) mushrooms.

Cook for about 8 minutes. Lovely flavorful brown bits will start to form at the bottom of the pot.

Add the fresh mushrooms . . .

And the garlic! We can’t be forgetting that.

Add the sage, and then salt generously. Sprinkle in copious amounts of black pepper as well. It’s important to season well at this stage so that the button mushrooms absorb some flavor and release their liquid. Check out the grains of salt in motion:

Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

By now, your pasta water probably came to a boil, and your pasta should be cookin’ away.

Once those 5 minutes have passed, it will look something like this:

Pure heaven!!!

Add the white wine . . .

And now add the soaking liquid from the dried mushrooms. Yes, it looks like dirty water, but don’t let that deter you. It contains the magic of the forest.

Turn the heat to medium-low and simmer gently for 5 minutes.

Your pasta should be getting really close by now. Check in on it every now and then. If you’re adding in bacon, that should be cooking in a separate pan at this point as well.

Turn the heat on the mushrooms to low, and stir in both the cheeses, the mascarpone: