Shortbread

We have gotten a lot of pleasure out of reading the comments in the visitors book. It seems that people have taken to us as much as they have the house. Jodie and I have both relished looking after people and making them feel at home. We've had so many terrific people though, it's one of the pleasures of the job thus far.

Of all the comments I had to post the one above, because it relates to my shortbread... and only a couple of batches in. I'm baking it about once a week, since it all seems to disappear too quickly. Not that I believed it was possible, but Jodie has been helping me to improve the recipe and the method, and today's batch was the best yet. I learn something about the theory and practise of the culinary arts [and sciences] every time we cook together.

I love the look of surprise on guests faces when they find out the shortbread is made by me... I always tell them that shortbread is my speciality, and Jodie's is everything else! Jodie has made a test cake in the ovens already [pictured below, below], and I've been conducting experiments to determine the settings for gas, and tray height to understand gas powered, non-fan-forced ovens...

My experiments below... what? too hot for shortbread already?

A picture of the shortbread has made it into our brochure, but I like the one we used for the website better.

We have a real production line of baked goods when we put our minds to it. Two ovens helps too... the best part is making the coffee, and doing some quality control testing.