Swirls of shortbread bringing the sunshine into this stormy weekend. # 334: Lemon Blueberry Shortbread Pinwheels

The lemon blueberry combo was calling my name this week. I actually have lemons (plural!!) on my tree this year and couldn’t resist picking them immediately. Catch me over here using homemade lemonade and these swirly cookies to combat a weekend of rainy grey skies.

Having design throwbacks to 2022 with my neon checkerboard shortbread, though the method was a little different. Instead of rolling the colors out into sheets, then stacking and slicing them, I made a whole bunch of dough marbles and squished them together to form individual cookies.

One third lemon zest, one third freeze-dried blueberry and one third blueberry simple syrup.

Confession: there was a solid minute where I considered dipping these in dark chocolate, despite the lemon and blueberry combo. I even reached for the chocolate shelf before I snatching my hand back. Both citrus and berries are delish with chocolate, right? I can justify anything.

This recipe uses powdered instead of granulated sugar, but I don’t see a specific benefit for the swap. I went down a little research rabbit hole, but still couldn’t find a significant reason! Powdered sugar has a bit of cornstarch to keep it from clumping, and you don’t need to cream it with the butter as long, since there aren’t large crystals that need to break down. The less time you spend creaming the butter and sugar, the less air gets worked into the dough, resulting in a slightly denser cookie. But since it’s shortbread, dense isn’t a bad thing! So we’re back to square one. If you know more about the science, share your sugar secrets please.

Mount Flour.

Wooden spoon stepping up to finish the job.

I played myself with this flavor idea: adding a syrup to only one of the three doughs threw off the texture. They all need to match so when I swirl them, the design shifts at the same rate (instead of one smearing while the others swirl nicely). I tried adding more flour and cornstarch to bring it back, but it was still stickier than the purple and yellow doughs. Womp womp.

*snaps fingers to jump to the future* Ta-daa!

Tiny dough ball army. New band name?

Squish.

Success! They had to take an extended nap in the fridge before I attempted the swirl: gently pressing on the little dough pizza with the palm of my hand and twisting until it looks like a pinwheel on a windy day.

The ones without baby blue are giving fancy marble.

Happy munching!

Recipe from: Alice Fevronia’s Instagram