TWD - Hungarian Shortbread

I was actually really excited for this months first recipe, Hungarian Shortbread.  Why?  Well I'm an Irish girl and I loooove shortbread ;)  Ok so I am not actually Irish, but I'm Australian and that is almost the same thing! :) 

Now when my daughter saw that it had Rhubarb Jam she was really excited, she loves her great grandmother's rhubarb and strawberry jam and was looking forward to trying this. 

I decided to make the jam the day before I made the shortbread, just to limit the time I needed to spend in the kitchen.  With a toddler helper it can be a bit much to complete an entire recipe all at once :)  We found some fresh rhubarb at Whole Foods for the jam and with the recipe being super simple I was able to get that made in no time.

Here is the finished jam which I popped in the fridge overnight.  It tasted really good by the way.  Not that I sampled it or anything ;) 

No since I am avoiding wheat for a few months I was a bit stressed on how to make this gluten free, on a trip to whole foods I found this flour

It's a bit pricey but I wasn't confident enough to make my own blend of flours just yet, I will get there.  I have bookmarked a gluten free shortbread recipe to make another time.  It looks divine and I am looking forward to making my own blend of gluten free flour.  This packaged flour worked really well though and I am confident that I can use it in the future when converting a recipe to be gluten free. 

I am also avoiding egg yolks, so I was going to go all out and use this

but I'm a wimp and chickened out and used this instead

since I am only avoiding egg yolks and this is made with just whites.  I will get there ;)

The dough came together nice and quickly, the hardest part was grating the dough into the baking dish.  It started to get soft which made it challenging but it wasn't too bad.  That would be my only hesitation on remaking the dough, we liked everything about it but I didn't love grating the dough.  That is my only complaint though, it really was delicious and would really compliment a cup of tea nicely!

I hope you enjoyed it as much as my family did.  If you don't own Baking with Julia yet, go and buy it!  This recipe is on page 327-8 and is definitely worth a try.  If you would like the recipe please visit our hosts for this week Cher of  The not so exciting adventures of a dabbler... and Lynette of 1smallkitchen or if you would like to see how everyone else did on this baking challenge visit here.

Thanks for visiting!  Enjoy.