Apricot Cardamom Shortbread Bars: Losing it and in need of humor

I hit a low point in my career as a stay-at-home-mom last weekend when I completely lost my temper with my children.  I yelled harshly at my children, screaming at them to get away from me, to leave me alone to just GET AWAY.  I couldn't stand to hear them one more time, to see their faces and I broke down in tears.  It was a day fraught with much stress of the season - the combination of work, parenting, Christmas, and being sick.  Even as I yelled at them, the reasonable part of me thought, just calm down.  Just relax.  It's not that big of a deal.  The reasonable part of me observed the completely insane part losing it and couldn't do anything about it.  Torn into two, the crazed side won out.  I don't know if I cried more because of serious stress or the dismay over my lack of control over myself.

I apologized to the children and explained to them that I shouldn't have lost my temper.  And children are resilient.  They looked solemnly at me and nodded their heads and said that they were sorry too.  But that night, after they had gone to bed, I couldn't help but crawl into each of their beds, and pray that my own lack of control did not cause any trauma and that the would recover.  Snuggling with each of them as they slept, when they were quiet (no talking back or bickering), warm and innocent in their sleep was a balm for me.  I prayed over each of them asking God for forgiveness for not taking care of them better.

The days that have followed have been better.  I've made a point to hug and cuddle them more.  To listen to them more.  To SMILE at them more.  (I generally scowl because I want them to do something and they aren't obeying me.)  To giggle, to make funny jokes, to just be silly with them more.  And it's been fun.  My heart is lighter from the effort and even though Son and Daughters still drive me crazy, I try and view their antics and their behaviors with a bigger sense of humor than I did before.

This shortbread requires a bit of humor because as my friend JEL puts it - it looks like melted cheese but doesn't taste like it.  These shortbread bars are made with the very unusual technique of grating frozen dough. Sounds crazy and nutty, but the result is a crisp, light, tender and totally delicious shortbread.  With the notes of vanilla and cardamom, it is really a special treat.  Just get yourself past the fact that you're grating dough and you're set to go.  Do NOT attempt this if you do not have a food processor with the grating disk, because grating frozen dough is WAY harder than grating cheese.  (unless of course you have a great sense of humor and then maybe you can put up with it.)

Apricot Cardamom Shortbread Bars
(adapted from Gale Gand’s Butter Sugar Flour Eggs)
Makes 32 bars (large ones, or 64 smaller ones)


Ingredients
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened
4 egg yolks
1 vanilla bean, split, and seeds scraped out
2 cups granulated sugar
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons ground cardamom
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cup apricot jam at room temperature

Method
Cream the butter in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or using a hand mixer) until soft and fluffy. Add the egg yolks and the inside of a vanilla bean and mix well.

Whisk the granulated sugar, flour, cardamom, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt together. Add to the butter and egg yolk mixture and mix just until incorporated and the dough starts to come together. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and form into four balls, small enough to fit into your food processor tube. (Doing smaller portions for the freezer means that the next day you won't be trying to cut chunks of dough small enough to fit into your food processor.) Wrap each ball in plastic wrap and freeze at least 2 hours or overnight (or as long as a month, if you like).

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Remove two small balls of dough from the freezer and coarsely grate it by hand or with the grating disk in a food processor into the bottom of a 9x13-inch baking pan lined with parchment or a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Make sure the surface is covered evenly with shreds of dough.

With the back of a spoon or a flexible spatula, spread the jam over the surface. Another technique is to put the jam in a plastic bag and cut the corner and squeeze all over the shreds of dough. Found the squeezing jam technique slightly easier but not much. Remove the remaining dough from the freezer and coarsely grate it over the entire surface. DO NOT PRESS DOWN.

Bake until lightly golden brown, 35 to 45 minutes. A Cool on a wire rack, then cut in the pan with a serrated knife.

Printable recipe

This piece of equipment will be your friend.


Really wonderful book - but many of the recipes were beyond my ability to make.