Go Shortbread, It's Your Birthday

Happy New Year, friends! What wishes and goals do you have for 2015? I have resolved to floss daily, and to continue baking/cooking/eating things that make me happy. One of these things will be easier than the other. First up to ease the pain: Maple Walnut Shortbread.

I love cookies in general, and the sweet, crumbly, buttery goodness of shortbread is a particularly simple yet classy form of this delicious dessert. In this recipe, the walnuts and maple syrup both add a deep, rich layer to the dough - a perfect match for hot tea on cold nights! I couldn't resist immediately sliding a tray of these into the oven, but you could also make the dough in advance, form it into a log, and freeze it for those nights when the sweet tooth strikes...as long you as remember to floss afterwards!

Maple Walnut Shortbread
veganized from Martha Stewart

Makes 3 dozen cookies

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt (sea salt is best here)
1 cup coarsely chopped toasted walnuts
1 cup Earth Balance at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup

First, toast those nuts. Spread them out evenly on a baking sheet and stick them in the oven at 350 F for 6-10 minutes. Watch them like a hawk! As soon as they start to get a little golden, take them out - no one likes burnt nuts.

Once the nuts have cooled for about 10 minutes, grab your food processor. Dump in the flour, salt, and walnuts, and go to town. You want a pretty fine mixture without any large walnut chunks.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my food processor?

In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to cream your butter until it's super soft. Add the sugar and keep mixing until it's a lemony color and very smooth. Now add the maple syrup and go at it again for another minute or so. Add the dry ingredients and mix one last time, stopping as soon as everything is evenly incorporated. You should have a slightly sticky dough that isn't crumbly or runny. Cover your bowl with a dish towel and pop it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, or up to 24 hours.

Heavenly.

Once your dough is nice and chilled, preheat the oven to 350 F and line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Carve out hunks of dough and form them into 1-inch balls. Once they're all neatly lined up on the baking sheet, use the bottom of a glass to flatten them out to about 1/2 inch thick. I had some leftover walnuts so also stuck little chunks on top of my shortbread to dress it up a bit! Throughout all this, you might need some extra flour to keep the dough from stick to your hands or the glass.

Pre-rolling!

Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the edges of your shortbread start to turn a nice golden brown. If you'd like, you can dust them with powdered sugar once they cool, or just pop the warm nuggets straight into your mouth as they are. Enjoy!

Mexican Commitment Ceremony Cakes

They're just like Mexican Wedding Cakes, but for morally corrupt crusaders against family values like yours truly! Apparently these cookies are also called Russian Tea Cakes, but let's not even go there.

Alright, all snark aside, you guys are going to love these teeny sugar-coated cookies - they're ridiculously delicious and so easy to make! This sweet treat is super rich and buttery, with a great nutty crunch and a melt-in-your-mouth powdered sugar coating. 

These cookies only require 5 ingredients and approximately 20 minutes, so if you're in the market for a last-minute contribution to a potluck or afternoon tea then these little guys are perfect. Plus they're tiny, so you can totally eat 7 of them in one sitting without feeling guilty. That's how it works, right? 

Mexican Wedding Cakes

(adapted from Hell Yeah It's Vegan!)

Makes about 4 dozen cookies

1 cup Earth Balance

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or a nutty liqueur like amaretto, because YOLO)

2 cups flour

1 ½ cups powdered sugar

1 cup walnuts

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Chop up the walnuts, spread them on a cookie sheet, and pop them in the oven while it heats up. Keep a close eye on them - the line between "toasted" and "completely charred" is pretty fine. You'll want your walnuts to be fragrant and just a teeny bit golden brown. 

Chop chop!

In the meantime, grab a medium bowl and mix the Earth Balance and vanilla until creamy. Add the flour and 6 tablespoons of the powdered sugar and go to town - you're going to need to mix for a couple of minutes before the dough comes together. 

Keep mixing!

Quick quick, take out the walnuts before they burn! Once they've cooled a little, mix them into the cookie dough. If you're the kind of person who liberally taste-tests raw cookie dough before it goes into the oven (who isn't?), you're going to worry that I've ripped you off because this concoction is admittedly a little bland and uninspiring. But have faith, it's gonna be okay!

Also, check out the sweet apron my mom got me. 

Dig into the dough and make cookie balls that are a little bit smaller than a ping pong ball. Don't worry about flattening them or spacing them out or anything like that. Once you fill up a cookie sheet, just stick it in the oven and bake for 10 minutes, until the cookies are a very little brown on the bottom. Wait a couple of minutes, then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool.

Enlist your friends for help!

Once the cookies are sort of cool but still warm (I gave them about 10 minutes), you're ready for the final step. Pour the rest of your powdered sugar into a flat dish and roll the cookies around like little snowballs. If the powdered sugar immediately melts on contact, wait a couple more minutes for the cookies to cool. That's it! Your cookies are ready to devour - just watch out for powdered sugar spillage!