Earl Grey Shortbread with Blood Orange Glaze

Tender, buttery shortbread infused with Earl Grey tea and drizzled with a pretty-in-pink blood orange glaze. It’s an easy and oh so elegant cookie recipe that’s delicious on its own or served with tea.

The tea flavor is surprising, unexpected and utterly enchanting, subtle and perfectly balanced alongside the buttery cookie. The citrus glaze proves to be the perfect finish: highlighting the fragrant flavor of bergamot in addition to adding a pop of color to an otherwise bland-looking cookie bar (not that I always judge a cookie by its appearance, but, let’s face it, if I can make it prettier I will).

This recipe uses the same shortbread cookie base as my Chocolate Chip Shortbread and Cranberry Almond Shortbread Bars, which shows you just how versatile this shortbread recipe is. It’s quickly turning into one of my favorite cookie recipes, both for its flavor and flexibility but also for the fact that it’s just so darn easy.

To infuse the cookie with tea flavor, simply cut open a tea bag and add the contents to the shortbread dough (seriously, it’s that easy). You can also use loose leaf tea, though since it tends to be coarser I recommend grinding it with a mortar and pestle until it’s the consistency of ground black pepper.

Substitutions: black tea works here too, as does regular orange juice if blood oranges aren’t available to you (add a drop or two of pink food coloring and no one will know the difference). You can also make the glaze with milk or any other liquid instead of citrus juice, if you wanted to focus the flavors on just the tea, but I have to say the hint of citrus here is quite lovely.

(more…)

from Love and Olive Oil https://ift.tt/2GC42YN