cooking – Page 3 – hugsnblessings

Yes, Helen!

Today is the 25th of the Month and it’s

Cookie Day at North Star,

in this ‘the year of the Cookie!’

February’s cookie was inspired by one of my favorite book series

The Mitford Series written by Jan Karon.

Millions of Mitford fans will agree – it’s easy to put on a pound or two reading a Mitford novel! In scene after scene, you find colorful characters enjoying ravishing dishes like Puny’s golden-crusted cornbread and Father Tim’s baked ham with bourbon glaze. And before you know it, you’ve read several pages by the glow of the refrigerator lightbulb!

If you love the Mitford books, like I do, you’ll devour Jan Karon’s Mitford Cookbook & Kitchen Reader, edited by Martha McIntosh

The book is filled with recipes for 150 dishes of your favorite scenes from each of the Mitford books. Today I have chosen Avis Packard’s Shortbread Cookie to bake!

Avis Packard, proprietor of The Local

In the little village of less than a thousand, everyone’s dinner – party or otherwise – began at The Local, unless they wanted to make the fifteen mile drive to Food Value. Of course, they could go out to Cloer’s Market, but Hattie Cloer was so well-known for telling customer’s her aches and pains that hardly anyone ever did that. Avis Packard once said, that Hattie Cloer had sent more business to The Local than any advertising he had ever run in the paper. One thing Father Tim liked about Avis Packard was the way he got excited about his groceries. He could rhapsodize about the first fresh strawberries from the valley in a way that made him a veritable Wordsworth of garden fare. “We got a special today on tenderloin that’s so true to the meanin’ of th’ name, you can cut it with a fork.” At Home in Mitford, Chapter 4

Avis’s Shortbread Cookies

5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Nonstick cooking spray for the pans, Confectioners’ sugar, for sprinkling over the cookies.

Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and granulated sugar on medium speed for 8 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and continue beating. Add the vanilla, then add the flour mixture and beat until the mixture just holds together. Chill the dough for at least 1 hour before baking.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Coat a cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray. Use an ice cream scooper to scoop the dough out onto the pan.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the edges begin to brown. Remove the shorbreads from the pan, place on a plate, and sprinkle confectioners’ sugar over the warm cookies.