Longtime home baker’s advice: splurge on best butter

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This article was published 15/12/2021 (1105 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Today’s recipe for the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies comes directly from the kitchen of a member of the Order of Manitoba.

Doris Mae Oulton was inducted into the order on May 12 after years of advocating for women’s rights and building community organizations.

She helped found and remains the chairwoman of the Nellie McClung Foundation and has the same post with the Canadian Federation of University Women Charitable Trust.

She is also former assistant deputy minister of the Manitoba Women’s Directorate.

“I have always worked in areas where you don’t actually see the results of the work you’re doing,” she says. “I’m a community developer and it takes a long time for change to happen and for people to develop an organization or an industry. It’s always long-term stuff I’m in.

“(Baking) is right now, it’s very satisfying… I love it when something works really well and it looks gorgeous.”

While her life’s work in advocating for women’s rights is one to admire, Oulton is insistent that Christmas baking remains high on her list of priorities.

“I don’t consider a cookie recipe a small thing,” she says. “I’m all about Christmas cookies. They’re on my list of things that are important, of things that people like, of things that must be done, of things that are going to take a huge amount of time, of things you really need to think about in terms of what you’re going to do new this year. All of these things.”

Like most home bakers, Oulton, 76, got her start as a youngster, thanks to sibling rivalry and an offer from her mother she couldn’t refuse.

“I really got serious baking when my sister got into home economics,”Oulton says. “There was always kind of a rivalry. She was older, she was very glamorous and was learning how to cook.

“My mother made a deal with me. I either did the toilets on Saturday morning or baked. It wasn’t any choice as far as I was concerned.”

The recipe she shares with Free Press readers is Hazel Nut Lemon Shortbread Bars, to which she has added Christmas trees using green-coloured icing. It’s a new recipe for 2021 for her, but she’s been making its backbone — shortbread — for years.

“I like it because you can make it in a square pan and cut it,” she says. “It’s not really fussy in terms of having to shape it or cut it… They’re a low-energy kind of cookie and they taste fabulous.”

When Oulton emailed the recipe prior to heading to Quebec to visit children and grandchildren over the holidays, she provided a key bit of Christmas baking advice.

“In shortbread, the quality of butter really makes a difference,” she wrote. “It is worth the splurge.”

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @AlanDSmall

Hazel Nut Lemon Shortbread Bars

500 ml (2 cups) unbleached flour
250 ml (1 cup) hazelnut meal (Red Mill makes a good one)
2.5 ml (½ tsp) salt
340 g (¾ lb) butter
430 ml (1 ¾ cup) icing sugar
15 ml (1 tbsp) lemon zest
5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla

Line a 9×12 pan with parchment paper.

Whisk flour, hazelnut meal and salt together.

Cream butter, icing sugar, lemon zest and vanilla (3 to 4 minutes).

Add flour and beat until it forms lumps, then press into the lined pan and smooth into an even layer. Score into bars (1 x 2½). Bake until tops look dry and golden — about 35-40 minutes at 165 C (325 F).

When they come out of the oven, transfer to rack and rescore as soon as possible or the bars will crumble.

Leave in the pan to cool completely before removing from the pan. A bench scraper works really well to evenly divide the bars.