Shortbread for a shortwhile.

Last week I got a little experimental in the old kitchen; I attempted to make Jam Donught cupcakes from an amalgamation of a couple of recipes I'd found on-line. They came out okay, but had one major issue; despite the fact that i filled the cake case almost to the top before adding the jam in, it had still sunk completely to the bottom by the time they had finished baking leaving a sticky jam mess in the bottom. They also tasted more like mini Victoria sponges than donughts, but that's no bad thing! A colleague at work even called them amazing. I definitely need to make them again at some point and try and figure out a way to avoid my jammy conundrum.

Due to the fact that my first bake hadn't been the complete success I had hoped, I decided on a whim to make some shortbread. I went with the simplest recipe I could find on-line and muddled my way through something I had never made before. The result was well.... not amazing. I think i overworked the dough a little before baking, mainly due to the fact I had to improvise a rolling pin which in turn made them a little tough and dry. However they couldn't have been that bad as my boyfriend managed to polish them off without complaint in a few days!

I couldn't let my shortbread failure beat me so this week I tried again, as my parents were visiting and I wanted something impressive to give them as a gift. This time I made the dough a bit different and found a much better substitute rolling pin. I also cut the dough into a big circle and the cut this into the traditional pizza slice shapes, like the shortbread your grandma used to have in a tartan tin.
My parents didn't believe I had made it; this means one of two things, it was pretty darn great or it was distinctly average and my parents just have very little faith in my baking ability! I'm going to convince myself its the latter!