Black Pepper Shortbread (and Happy 100th post!)

I don't like to lie to you so I will let you know right now that these biscuits are VERY VERY BAD FOR YOU. There is a whole block of butter in them and once you eat one you will end up eating many more. I wanted to give these away but I ended up munching on most of them myself. Oh yes, these 100 blog posts have led to a fair amount of waist expansion. But it's been incredibly rewarding, I've eaten some amazing food, met some lovely people as a result and have been able to share my successful and disastrous baking experiments with you.

Yay 100 blog posts!

When I first saw the original recipe I assumed it was a savoury biscuit recipe because of the black pepper in it. But as I was putting it together I realised that with a cup of sugar it was actually a sweet biscuit. It was very confusing.

I still wanted to make a savoury shortbread so I lowered the amount of sugar and increased the salt. Even then these were still quite sweet, which is confusing at first bite, but really grows on you. But feel free to adjust the amount of sugar depending on how sweet/savoury you fancy it. They are so perfect in texture, they just melt in your mouth and are so buttery. I could have eaten more but I kept reminding myself of that whole block of butter.

Black Pepper Shortbread Cookies

(adapted from the Golden Book of Patisserie)

3 cups (450g) plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarb soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground sea salt
250g unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup (60 ml) heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Combine the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, cinnamon, allspice and salt in a medium bowl. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and creamy. With mixer on low speed, beat in the cream, mixed dry ingredients, and black pepper to form a smooth dough. Form the dough into a log about 4 cm in diameter. Wrap in cling film and refridgerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees C. Line a baking tray and slice the dough 5mm thick and place cookies 2.5 cm apart on the sheets. Bake for 5-7 minutes or until just golden. Transfer to racks and let them cool completely.

A big thank you to anyone who has taken the time to read my little blog. It means a lot and I hope to keep it up for at least another 100 posts :) I will probably be slowing in frequency with my posts soon, if only I could spend more time baking, blogging and eating without all those annoying parts of life getting in the way!