Chocolate Shortbread

Ok, so here is the shock of the century: Chocolate is not one of my favorite things.  Crazy huh?  I have never been one to have chocolate bars hanging around the house.  I like it but often can take it or leave it and definitely do not crave it.  For several years my mother-in-law would buy my husband and I easter eggs and they would sit in the house uneaten for months.  It used to drive some of my friends crazy! The thing is, even though I am not crazy about chocolate itself , I LOVE two chocolate deserts: chocolate ice cream and chocolate shortbread. I think what I love about these two things is the strong cocoa taste without the overbearing sweetness.

For awhile now I have been wanting to make chocolate shortbread so I decided that Easter was a good excuse.  I found some cute easter cookie cutters (yes I rolled and cut biscuits two days in a row!) and did a bit of research before I settled on a recipe.  I followed the instructions of others and added 1/4 cup extra of cocoa and 1/4 less of flour.  I was pretty happy with the results and am looking forward to tasting them tomorrow as apparently they taste better the next day.  My husband absolutely loved them and ate three of them in less than two minutes.  He was a happy boy that I wasn't giving all of them away.

As for the decorating of the biscuits I decided to keep it simple and stick to the basics.  I found another royal icing recipe that used fresh lemon juice and what a difference!  I am pretty happy with how they look and the icing adds to the cookie.

For the chocolate shortbread recipe go to:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Emilys-Famous-Chocolate-Shortbread-Cookies/Detail.aspx?prop31=1  

For the royal icing recipe:
http://www.joyofbaking.com/RoyalIcing.html