Recipe and Giveaway: Chipotle Shortbreads

Recipe and Giveaway: Chipotle Shortbreads

Move over Julia Child and Paula Dean. I’m the Butter Queen today.

Now that the jack-o’-lanterns have been extinguished and the last of the waxy mini-chocolate bars have been gobbled, we can safely move onto thoughts of holiday baking. While I’m not ready to rummage in the basement for stockings and mistletoe, I am more than ready to plot the goodies I’ll be baking in my recently renovated kitchen. And as I do, visions of shortbreads dance in my head.

Those who know me will vouch that I’m a huge shortbread fan, making variations that run from a classic 4-ingredient cookie to a savory Pecan Cheesie. So when I was offered the chance to post a butter giveaway, I couldn’t say no. “Butter give away?” you ask in a mixture of awe and joy. Yes, butter give away. Who says dreams don’t come true?

The Giveaway: A basket valued at $60 containing the following items:

  • 3 -month supply of Gay Lea Butter
  • Cookie cutters
  • Rolling pin
  • 1 Red Path free coupons
  • 1 Egg Whites free coupons
  • Cookie recipes
  • Shortbread tips
  • Gay Lea Tin

GayLea, the sponsor, is available only in Ontario, so the winner must be an Ontario resident. But to appease non-Ontario readers, I’m including a recipe with three of my favourite ingredients. Chiptole, Cheddar and, of course, butter. And lots of it.  On Monday, newsletter subscribers will get a second shortbread recipe, this time on the sweet side. (Not a subscriber yet? Sign up! It’s free.)

Live in Ontario and want some free butter? All you have to do to enter is leave a comment in the comments section by Sunday, November 7th (the day I’m onstage at the Royal cooking!) telling me how you like to use butter. I’ll announce the winner on Monday, November 8th.

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Chipotle & White Cheddar Shortbread Cracker

Recipe provided by GayLea Butter

Ingredients:

  • 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • 2 tbsp Instant Dissolving Sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground chipotle pepper
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 1/4 cups cold Gay Lea Unsalted Butter
  • 1 cup grated, aged white Cheddar cheese

Instructions:

Pulse the flour with the cornstarch, sugar, chipotle pepper and salt in a food processor. Add the butter and cheese; pulse until the mixture comes together. Divide the dough into two portions and form into a rectangular log, about 1-inch (2.5 cm) thick by 2-inches (5 cm) wide. Chill for at least 1 hour or until firm enough to slice easily.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and arrange the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Slice the logs 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick. Place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheets.

Bake, in batches and rotating the sheets halfway through baking, for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden around the edges. Cool completely on a rack.

Makes about 7 dozen shortbread ‘crackers’

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11 Comments
  • Donna
    Posted at 09:11h, 04 November

    Hi Charmian: Butter, one of my favourite things. I use butter in all my baking. I can’t really see the sense of using all good ingredients and then using something other than butter. Everything is better with butter, from a baked potato to cookies to butter tarts. Butter is a staple in my kitchen.

  • NS Foster
    Posted at 09:26h, 04 November

    Funny story–I never used to have butter at all. We’d started using this low-fat margarine (?) at my parent’s house when I was a kid (loyally, despite the fact that something about it made buttered toast soggy). So I kept buying it myself for years. This was before I learned to cook, I’d like to point out.

    Now? My favorite use for butter is actually probably on meats. The day I learned that the perfect brown sear needs butter and oil was enlightenment.

  • Wendy Gacparski
    Posted at 10:44h, 04 November

    How wonderful that the good people at Gay Lea are are offering such a great give-a-way! It’s the only brand of butter I use in my kitchen, no other butter compares to it’s flavour, richness and quality for baking and cooking. Baking the perfect buttery shortbread is guaranteed when you use good quality butter – that was the first thing my Scottish mother and grandmother taught me when making shortbread, and believe me, they took baking shortbread very seriously! Today I share the same family recipes with my own daughter and grandchildren, and I get no greater pleasure than spending time baking with them and being able to send them home with a lovely tin of shortbread. We will definitely be trying out Gay Lea’s Chipotle & White Cheddar Shortbread Cracker recipe during our next visit!

  • Amy Proulx
    Posted at 18:02h, 04 November

    Butter, mmm! My favorite shortbread, is triple ginger shortbread rounds, big sunshine rounds of it, split into rays of goodness. But I’m also awfully fond of herbed butter. I did a pound of goregeous wild leek butter, which I am carefully rationing until the wild leeks are out again next spring. It must be served in a most pristine state on mashed potatoes. I could live on these potatoes.

  • Maggie
    Posted at 20:04h, 04 November

    I tried to make shortbread ( a long time ago ) using “light” margarine based a low calories recipe from a magazine. What a waste of time and ingredients! Seriously, why would any recipe suggest anything but butter for everyone’s favourite holiday cookies? Butter, it is the way to go for baking.

  • Robin Smart
    Posted at 22:04h, 04 November

    Dear Charmian,
    I will put lots of lovely melted butter on my popcorn while I watch the movie you are kindly lending me. I will make the worlds best shortbreads with it and I will share them with you. I will manage to get my spouse and child to eat a vegetable by making the best ever cheese sauce with a butter base. I’ll impress my teen with butter chicken, and I will pry the always sleeping-in John with Eggs Benedict.
    Hope this qualifies me.
    PS. I would enjoy it, and nothing else on delicately golden toast, in front of the fire, with hot tea!
    Love,
    Robin

  • Anh
    Posted at 03:46h, 05 November

    What a great recipe, thank u.

  • janice Kelly - Ottawa
    Posted at 05:01h, 05 November

    Hmmm. There’s nothing like butter as Julia Child would attest. I like to use butter to properly finish sauces, to add richness to vegetables, to accentuate a meat flavour and certainly to coax the pungent flavours from mushrooms.
    When baking, butter is essential to achieve a rich, flavourful pie crust and who can resist the sheer majesty of buttercream icing on the cake. Hopefully, a prize from Gay lea will become the icing on my cake.

  • Debbie
    Posted at 14:26h, 05 November

    I love shortbread. I hope I win the prize basket

  • Melissa
    Posted at 10:41h, 06 November

    When I was little I stayed with my cousins for a few days during one hot summer. They lived close to a dairy farm and every few days they would get a bucket of warm milk delivered to their door. My aunt didn’t like buying store milk and swore by the goodness of fresh milk right from the cow. Now there were rules on how this wonderful elixer would be consumed. First it had to cool and separate and once it was separated we could have some on our cereal, then some cream in our sweet tea and if we were good we could make our own butter using the butter cream that my aunt would skim from the top. I waited all day and played hard with my cousins in the hot summer sun, I was really hoping to make butter. When we had come in for lunch my aunt had already skimmed the milk and used an electric hand mixer to make the butter. She handed my cousin and myself a bun with smear of that fresh butter and I went to heaven! I had never tasted something so wonderful. I was in butter love! How could life get any better? Butter on a bun. Simple, wonderful and my most favourite thing in the world!

  • chipotle hours
    Posted at 03:50h, 26 September

    Hosting a party and craving for some delicious burritos and there isn’t the best place other than Chipotle. Get to know about Chipotle Hours beforehand and plan your further visit accordingly. Have an insight into details such as holiday schedule, What time does Chipotle Open and Close respectively. Also, learn about the Chipotle Near Me Location and its working timings.