Holiday Bakes Part II: Bitter Nib Shortbread
Folks, I think you’re going to like this shortbread.
Every mid-December I grow sugar-weary. People bring out their most decadent cookies and barks and cakes and bars, and who am I to decline a holiday treat – one of the noblest, oldest gestures of love for one’s fellow human? (For the record, I have never once refused a treat in any season, and actually harbor a deep-seated mistrust of anyone who turns down a proffered sweet for any reason other than a dietary restriction.)
My solution is never to reduce my sugar intake but rather to vary the forms in which I consume it. I believe that Thalia Ho’s bitter nib shortbread can surprise and delight even the most sucrose-fatigued among us for two reasons. First, it’s studded with slightly chewy coffee bean nibs. I defy you to name another popular holiday treat with this attribute. This plus the inky dark chocolate chunks means that the primary flavor is bitter: a welcome break from sweet. And second, it is sprinkled with – buckle up – vanilla bean gray salt. Think about how intriguing that sounds while I tell you about salt for a while.
In kindergarten, we had to practice making letters in 8-inch cake pans filled with about a quarter inch of table salt. We’d drag our fingers through the salt in the shape of an A, admire our work, shake it to erase the letter, then repeat. I found this task deeply boring. But when no one was looking, I’d lick my fingertip. Just one little taste, I’d think. But then I’d press my just-licked finger to the salt, pick up more, and taste it again. Then again. And again. I was caught and instructed to desist several times. I never did.
I’m basically still doing the same thing, except now I dust everything with crunchy Maldon salt, flirty pink Himalayan salt, smoked salt, etc. I’ve kept a container of finishing salt in any office I’ve ever had. I love salt. So the very idea of vanilla bean gray salt set the tip of my tongue aflame.
Gray salt, I learned, is often French. It comes from ocean water channeled through salt marshes into clay pools, where it’s raked and dried by people called sauniers. It’s allowed to touch the clay before it’s harvested, which is where it gets its color and extra minerals. It’s damp for a salt, so it doesn’t dry out baked goods, and has lovely large, dense grains. Mine is from Île de Ré, where this New York Times piece from 2012 will take you in the height of summer. It also includes a quote from a salt maker about raking the surface of the pools that has bewitched me: “You need a strong arm and a velvet touch. The sound of the water when you slap the surface, the contact with the salt, the feel of the sun, the wind: it is all very sensual.” Somebody fetch my fainting couch! Gray salt is sexy!
And when you add a vanilla bean to it, things get obscene.
Would this shortbread still be delicious with some plain flaky salt on top? Definitely. Thalia Ho has created a recipe that’s incredibly easy to make and has a big payoff. It’s bronzed and buff with a sandy, tender texture that’s snappy around the edges. It’s chocolatey, bitter, salty, and sweet with satisfying chewy nubs. You can bake it in a tart pan or an 8X8 tin and cut wedges or bars. If searching shelves for vanilla beans and obscure salt does not sound like fun to you, make this anyway and substitute a salt you’ve got on hand.
So what does the vanilla bean gray salt do for this recipe? Is it really worth inclusion? I think there are two possible responses. The first is that all truly excellent things are a composite of specific and small choices. It’s never just one detail that makes something exceptional: it’s all the details working in concert. The vanilla gray salt is subtle, and perhaps not easily distinguishable from plain salt, but it works with bitter coffee and dark chocolate in some distinctive way that seems almost effervescent. It elevates a simple square of shortbread. The second possible response is that the vanilla gray salt doesn’t taste all that special. But when we hear the words “vanilla bean gray salt,” we imagine the dark flecks of vanilla bean and the heady, sweet scent. We feel the humidity of Madagascar on our skin. We smell the Atlantic and hear its cold waves lapping the French shores. We see the sauniers hard at work in the dry heat and feel the sun on our own backs. For me, this matrix of sensory associations can contribute as much to the experience of eating as the flavor of the food itself. An ingredient like vanilla bean gray salt evokes something like terroir in a standard combination of butter, sugar, and flour, which I think makes for an interesting experience. Not necessarily a better one, just an interesting one.
I hope you enjoy your weekends and make some shortbread — vanilla salty or not, for yourself or for others! Sending holiday love, and as ever, thank you so much for reading.
Happy eating and gathering,
Katie
Bitter Nib Shortbread
By Thalia Ho in Wild Sweetness
Notes: First, I’ve been having some trouble with my oven temperature. I ended up baking my second batch of these at 350 for 25 minutes and got great results, though Thalia’s recipe calls for baking at 325. Shortbread is forgiving so I don’t think it matters too much, but if you’re not seeing a golden top, play around with the time and temp. Second, I only had organic cane sugar on hand and found I got slightly better results when I whizzed it in my Vitamix to make the granules a little bit finer. Not as fine as powdered sugar, but closer to regular granulated sugar. Third, hot tip: take the larger pieces of your coffee beans and finish them in a mortar and pestle so they don’t stick in your mom’s teeth.
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons roasted coffee beans
1 cup (2 sticks, 230 g) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
⅔ cup (135 g) granulated sugar, plus a little more for the top
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour
⅔ cup (115 g) coarsely chopped dark chocolate
Vanilla bean gray salt (see below)
Preheat the oven to 325. Set a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable base onto a baking sheet.
Put the coffee beans into a small processor or grinder and blitz to form a rough niblike texture. It doesn’t have to be perfect. [However, my grinder is quite bad and left chunks that were simply too large. I removed them and ground them with a mortar and pestle until they were the size of cacao nibs.] Set aside until needed.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt on medium speed until pale and creamy, 3 minutes. Pause mixing to scrape down the bottom and side of the bowl. Set the speed to low and tip in the flour. Beat until it has just begun to come together, then beat in the chocolate and beans until well distributed. [You don’t want to overmix, so stop the mixing as soon as you can. Get to the bottom of the bowl with a spatula to make sure no dry ingredients are lurking unmixed.] Tip the dough into the tart pan or lined square tin. Use your fingers [and/or the flat bottom of a glass] to press it into an even layer [and into the flutes around the edges.] Sprinkle with a generous pinch of vanilla bean gray salt and a pinch of sugar.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until light golden brown. Immediately use a sharp knife to score the top into eight even wedges. Allow the shortbread to cool in the pan completely before lifting it out, snapping or cutting along the scoring lines, and serving.
Vanilla Bean Gray Salt
1 cup (190 g) gray salt
1 vanilla bean pod
Put the salt in a bowl. Split open the vanilla bean pod with a sharp knife and scrape out the seeds, stirring them into the salt. Chop the pod into small chunks and toss it in until distributed. Seal and leave overnight to infuse overnight before you use it. It keeps for about six months.