Hungarian Shortbread

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Hungarian Shortbread, which is a shortbread layered with jam. The hosts this week are Lynette of 1smallkitchen and Cher of The Not So Exciting Adventures of a Dabbler . You can visit their sites to get the complete recipe and don’t forget to check out the Tuesdays with Dorie site to see the posts from all of the bakers. 

You’re supposed to make a rhubarb jam for this and I had planned on doing that but I didn’t have quite enough rhubarb on hand. Plus we’ve had such bad weather in the Seattle area that I know that finding rhubarb in the store would be difficult. I frequently pick up specialty jams and jellies when I travel, so I figured I would just use something I had on hand. I ended up using plum butter as the filling, and it was excellent!

Since the plum butter wouldn’t be as tart as the rhubarb jam, I cut the sugar back a little bit. I halved this recipe, baking it in a round pan. Grating the frozen dough into the pan gave the shortbread a really interesting texture, and when baked the shortbread is light and crumbly. This is soft in the middle, but has the crispness you expect with shortbread. I really liked this, and I thought it was so good with the plum filling. Baked in a round pan, it makes a special looking dessert!

Recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan, page 327