The name won't mean much to the vast majority of my two fans, I know, but when I was growing up Peter Lougheed was the Premier. No, let me make that was THE Premier. We identified with him. We cheered him when he took on Trudeau. And, as much as he fought for provincial rights, he reminded us that it was important to be Canadian first.
Agree or disagree with his politics, you had to look at him as a great man.
And that's as much political talk as I'm willing to put in.
What else, then?
Well...
I made cookies last night. Does that count as a topic?
I haven't made cookies for a fair while, actually. I used to do it pretty regularly and take them in to work, but I got out of the habit when I had a coworker who did far more baking than I was ever in the mood for. I kind of let her do the goodie making, I suppose, and stopped doing any of it myself. She's since left us for another job, though, and for whatever reason I decided to buy cookie ingredients for the first time in ages when I got my groceries this week.
I got down to making them last night.
Which was ok, I guess, except for the part where my apartment was already nearly 30C when I started. It was definitely 30C when I finished. That sure didn't make sleeping all that easy. The things a person will sacrifice for cookies.
I made a new recipe, which I confess is a bad habit of mine. Or at least it's a bad habit to decide to try new recipes on my coworkers. I haven't killed anyone yet, however, so they tend to put up with it. This was a bit of a weird recipe, which is partly why I tried it. I make a decent shortbread, but I've never made a shortbread before where nearly half of the butter is switched for cream cheese.
That's right. I made cream cheese shortbread.
With crushed Skor bar pieces.
And the verdict? Definitely a recipe that gets better once it's cooled. I wasn't sure when I tried one fresh out of the oven. Still wasn't sure when I tried one as I was putting them away. They certainly benefited from being refrigerated overnight, though.
Some cookies are like that.
And if I make them again? Oh, and I've been encouraged to make them again, so I guess they went over ok. If I make them again, I think I might add another Skor bar or two. And I'd certainly add a touch more vanilla. The recipe didn't even call for vanilla, but cookies without vanilla don't exist in my world so I put some in anyway. It worked.
And the recipe? Hmm. This is entirely off the top of my head, so use at your own risk:
Cream together 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1 brick (250 g, I think they are) cream cheese, and 1 1/3 cups (ish. I might have been closer to 1 1/2 cups) butter. Not margarine. If you use margarine, don't tell me that it's shortbread.
Beat in two eggs, one at a time. AND VANILLA. Maybe a teaspoon and a half or so, depending on your taste.
In a separate bowl mix together 4 cups flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt. Ad gradually to the sugar mixture.
Mix in 4 - 6 bars of crushed Skor candy bars. I used four because I was substituting in for plain toffee chips, but I think I'd use a bit more.
Cool in the fridge for at least an hour.
Preheat oven to 350F. Roll dough into 2 - 3 cm balls and place 4 cm apart on lightly greased cookie sheets. Press with fork. Bake for... well, the recipe calls for ten minutes, but in my apartment oven it was more like fourteen. Go by how done you like your shortbread, I guess.
Cool on sheet for five minutes, then remove to cooling rack and cool completely.
I generally like to refrigerate my shortbread so I couldn't tell you what the shelf life of this stuff might be, but I can tell you that you should get about 6 dozen cookies in a batch. If you'd sooner do these as thumbprint cookies and fill them with ganache, maybe use a bit less Skor bar or it might be too rich.
And hey. A post. Back to work now, though. Too much typing here as it is.
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