Lemon Rosemary Shortbread

Oh, Vegetarian Times, why do you mock me so?

I like Vegetarian Times, I do, really. Then again, I like any magazine with recipes, omni or veg*n. I do wish they wouldn't be so dumb about things though. I know, I know, it's not vegan times, but a lot of recipes are labeled vegetarian when with a very easy substitution (i.e. soy milk for moo milk) the recipe would be vegan.

This recipe was not one of them.

I saw this recipe for Lemon Rosemary Shortbread in this month's issue of VT and I was fascinated and wanted to try it. The recipe, of course, called for butter and egg yolks. Urgh. I read up online about how to correctly replace out egg yolks and came up with a variety of answers from filtered flax goo to soy lecithin to agar agar. I didn't want to use flax because I thought the lemon and rosemary flavors would be too delicate for the nutty undertones of flax. Soy lecithin only came in big bags and what the heck am I gonna do with the rest of it? And agar agar sounded like a joke anyway. I'm not making jello here! So I went for my old standby - pureed silken tofu. Success! It yielded a light a flakey cookie. I don't think egg yolk could do it better.

Lemon Rosemary Shortbread
1/2 cup Earth Balance margarine, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp finely chopped rosemary
1 tsp finely grated lemon zest *
1/4 cup pureed silken tofu
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup corn flour **
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup turbinado or sanding sugar for decorating

1. Beat together better, sugar, rosemary, and lemon zest, then beat in vanilla and tofu.

2. Add the dry ingredients and beat until just combined.

3. Roll the dough into two logs about 1" high each and roll in wax paper and put in the fridge for 2 hrs.

4. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Mist cookie sheets with nonstick spray. Slice cookies into 1/3" rounds, dip the tops in sugar, and place them on the cookie sheets. You can put them pretty close together, they don't spread.

5. Bake for 15 minutes or until the bottoms are golden brown.


* Yes, recipe checkers, I doubled this and I'm glad I did! Maybe it was just my lemon (and I used a Meyer lemon so nyah) but I don't think the lemon flavor would have come through at all with half as much zest.
** Corn flour is not Cornstarch or Corn meal. It's its own thing. I bought mine in the bulk isle at the co-op in a bin marked "Corn Flour" -- go figure.