Shortbread For My Sister

 
The kitchen in my little sister's Los Angeles studio is a spare and sunny space with whitewashed cabinets and a hulking, full-sized fridge that eats up a third of the nook. The rest of her retro-leaning apartment is spacious (for a studio) but in the kitchen, you could hold your arms out to your sides and almost touch the walls. In that way, it's not unlike the studio kitchen I cooked in years ago. It wasn't a room but merely a section of appliances that hugged a stretch of wall and offered just a foot or so of counter space and an oven just larger than an Easy Bake toy.

There is a certain amount of charm to cooking in tiny, no frills kitchens like these. You learn to make do, to work with what you have and improvise where you can - turning say, an empty bottle of wine into an improptu rolling pin because you have no space to store the real thing. And you master that peculiar space-saving shuffle that occurs when you're chopping and mixing and tossing and sauteeing, elbows flying, with family or friends in a space made for one. 

What these sorts of kitchens aren't good for is baking. They offer little space to store standard baking ingredients, much less the muffin tins, silpat mats and mixing bowls you need to keep on hand to bake. So, while I lived in that tiny space, I shelved my baking obsession. And though my sister bakes at home, I imagine she hasn't picked up a measuring cup since she left.

All this is to say that I feel a certain responsibility to bake for my sister, to stuff as many bar cookies and blackberry muffins as I can into those clever flat rate postage boxes before shipping the sweets south to her studio door. But lately, I've began feeling guilty for sending the same old things time after time. After all, one can only eat so many homemade granola bars the next shipment leaves them running for the door.

This time around, I wanted to send something exciting and imaginative, something that would excite her tastebuds and get her curious about something new. So after toying with the idea of brittle and biscotti, I settled on shortbread.

This is the kind of cookie that wants to snuggle up next to a mug of tea, which is apt since my sister drinks more tea than anyone I know. It has a sandy texture that's all the better for the crunchy bits of nuts that pock the shortbread rounds. And though I've yet to confirm this fact, I think it ships well making it a perfect gift for any space-strapped studio dweller you know.

Pecan Shortbread Cookies

Don't be tempted to leave out the vanilla bean in this recipe. Yes, they are expensive but the vanilla bean is what gives these cookies a sweet, nuanced flavor that will have you reaching for another again and again.

3/4 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped

1 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise, seeds scraped and pod reserved

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

3 tablespoons demerara sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 large rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter with the confectioners' sugar, vanilla bean and seeds, vanilla extract and salt on medium speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Add the flour in 3 batches beating at low speed until just incorporated. Discard the vanilla bean. Using a small spatula, stir in the pecans.

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and roll into a 1 1/2-inch-thick log. Wrap the log in plastic or parchment paper and refrigerate for one hour.

Spread the demarara sugar on a platter. Brush the log with the egg yolk and roll it in the sugar. Slice the log into 1/2-inch-thick rounds. Roll the rounds in the sugar again if needed so that they are coated all the way around. Transfer the sugared rounds to the prepared baking sheets, spacing them 1 inch apart.

Bake the shortbread cookies for about 15 minutes, until the edges are golden; rotate the baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through the baking time. Remove the cookies from the oven and transfer them to a wire rack. Let stand until cooled completely, about 30 minutes, before serving - or sending.

-Recipe from The Craft of Baking by Karen DeMasco