TWD & BWJ: Hungarian Shortbread

This week the TWD/BWJ group is baking Hungarian Shortbread. Our hosts are Lynette and Cher.  The recipe can be found in each of their blogs and as always, in the book, Baking With Julia. 
I planned to make the shortbread yesterday. I took the butter out early in the morning so it would be at room temperature when I wanted to bake.  As the day got busier and busier, I kept looking at those four sticks of butter and wondering just how wise it is to bake these cookies, when really I should be watching my weight.  For that matter, how smart is it to join a baking blog and try and lose weight at the same time?  Oh well, I will think about that next week, when we don't blog. 

I will say that this is one buttery treat. Even after I mixed the dough, it looked and felt like one huge lump of butter.  As is often the case, I took advantage of the wisdom and experience of other bakers. After reading the P & Q's on this recipe, I decided to pre-bake the bottom layer by itself for 15 minutes. I lined the pan with parchment paper and I used blackberry preserves. 

This recipe calls for grating the dough, which is a lot of fun, but you do have to wrap and freeze the dough first.  Next time, I will be more careful how I wrap the dough. It was so sticky, I just plopped it formlessly on wax paper. As a result, once the dough froze, I had to make sure I got the wax paper out of the nooks and crannies where the dough had folded over the paper.

These cookies are easy to make and very tasty, but if I make them again (and given the amount of butter that's a big if) I will cut down on the sugar and skip dusting them with confectioner's sugar altogether.  I also found that the bottom layer was a bit soggy.  Oh well, I hope the kids enjoy them when they get home from school.