Nº 22: Apple Spice Shortbread
and other things to do with baked apple chips
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Good morning,
A week ago, I was making tomato sauce with the last of tour garden’s tomatoes. This week I’m moving straight into fall with my Apple Spice Shortbread, which got a lot of love when I started making it for the farmers’ market last year. I’ll share the recipe for them below in the P.S.* (I’ll also give you a simple recipe for Apple-Cinnamon Dust) — after I tell you a bit about the ingredients.
What else can I tell you? In case you’re starting to think about holiday gifts, I now have some signed copies of my book available on my site. Our little secret.
And a note about someone else’s book:
My friend
’s new book, Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes came out on Tuesday. It’s full of tempting recipes, some of which I had the luck of tasting at the launch party, where the olive and cheese puffs were my favorite. They somehow tasted like Cheez-Its in warm, spherical form, a tender olive at the center of each. This book is a departure for Jessie, the queen of (usually sweet) “easy-peasy”, as all of the recipes are savory. I’m biased, of course, but I think the book is a great resource for snackers, brunchers, and cocktail partyers alike.In other book-related ramblings, I’m ashamed to say I’d never read Hilary Mantel before picking up A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing, which, to my surprise, is frequently making me laugh while simultaneously astounding me with Mantel’s verbal facility. Shoutout to my friend Alison Forner, who designed the book’s striking jacket.
One more thing: I wrote recipes for (and all about the research and testing I did to develop) a Plant-Based Custard/Pastry Cream and a Juno- (Copenhagen bakery) inspired Vanilla Custard Bun for
’s . Each of these recipes was a thrill to crack.Have a cozy weekend. Talk to you soon.
Brian
*Formal Assignment P.S. is for paid subscribers. It’s just $5 a month—or even less for an annual subscription.
Before we get to the featured recipe (Apple Spice Shortbread), here is a pantry recipe, along with some details about the ingredients and a helpful little piece of equipment:
PANTRY RECIPE: APPLE-CINNAMON DUST
35g (1 cup) baked apple chips or freeze-dried apples
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Blitz the dried apple and cinnamon in a food processor until finely pulverized. (Depending on the size of your food processor, you may need to double the recipe.) Sift through a fine-meshed sieve and store in an airtight jar in a cool, dry place for months. Use as you would cinnamon sugar; In my book, I use it for rolling Ricotta-Chestnut Fritters in and for dusting Cinnamon & Bourbon Fried Apple Rings. For Date-Cinnamon Dust, simply use date sugar in lieu of the apple chips.
Baked apple chips: Personally, I will never be interested in crunchy apple chips as a snack. On the other hand, I’ve found them extremely useful as a baking ingredient.
Whether you use baked apple chips or freeze-dried apples, there should only be one ingredient: apples. If my calculations are correct, every 100 grams of baked apple chips or freeze-dried apples represents about 3-4 whole apples. That means that in the recipe that follows, we’re using the equivalent of roughly 1 1/2 apples. For a fairly small batch of cookies, this provides plenty of apple flavor. These organic Bare-brand chips are pretty ubiquitous in the U.S., at least in my neck of the woods. They’re even sold — seasonally — at Costco, which is probably where you can get the best deal on them.
Date sugar, a.k.a. date powder: It doesn’t take much dried apple to deliver a pleasantly potent apple flavor, and date sugar (whole dates, dried and ground to a powder) swoops in to supplement the sweetness and add a brown sugar-y note to the shortbread. If you need help finding date sugar or any other ingredients, see my guide here.
Oats/ oat flour: Oats (or oat flour) and apples are a match made in heaven, and the grain adds some heartiness to the shortbread’s texture and a sweet caramel-y note to its flavor.
Butter: I use a mix of half European-style (usually Kerrygold) butter, half organic American. European-style has more fat than American and gives a more luxurious texture and flavor.
Mini pastry roller: I learned about this handy tool from one of my recipe testers and have been using it specifically to evenly press shortbread ever since. Here’s the one I have: Norpro 4-in. (10-cm) Wood Pastry Roller.
Food processor: You do need a food processor for this recipe as it’s written. If you don’t have one, you could work around it by using oat flour and store-bought apple powder (I’ve never used the latter, so I can’t vouch for any specific source or brand).
On to the recipe…
P.S.—
APPLE SPICE SHORTBREAD
Yield: 28 (1 x 2-inch) shortbread cookies
Active time: 20 minutes
Total time: 1 hour 15 minutes
What makes them sweet? Baked apple chips (or freeze-dried apples) and date powder
INGREDIENTS:
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