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A Celiac vs. a Shortbread Cookie Contest
Do you remember that episode from Parks and Recreation where Chis Traeger (Rob Lowe) faces off against Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) in a burger cook-off? While Chris tries to prove that healthy food can taste good by serving up a decked-out turkey burger on a “gluten-free brioche bun” that the judges (their fellow co-workers) find surprisingly good, Ron slaps down the plainest beef hamburger on a bun (with no toppings) and wins. If you haven’t seen that, then check out this clip below:
Why do I bring up this story? Because that’s exactly how gluten-free baking feels compared to regular baking. No matter how much work you put in, and no matter how good a gluten-free cookie might be (like this, this, or this), the same recipe made with regular flour can taste so much better with so much less effort. That’s not to say that gluten-free baking is inherently less good than regular baking, but it can be a challenge depending on what you’re making.
In my case, I—a celiac—entered one of the tougher baking contests for a gluten-free baker: a shortbread contest. These cookies are only flour, butter, and sugar, so there’s little room for error. To make it more of a challenge, I did this at the Scottish Games in Central Florida, where there was some tough competition. I also made my cookies vegan because of my dairy sensitivity, which proved to be the tougher part of the challenge in a lot of ways.
Me at the Scottish Games, finding my clan.
About the Baking Contest
As I said, this contest was a part of the Scottish Games. There was no “gluten-free” or “vegan” category for the baking contest that I entered. Rather, there were two options: “traditional” or “modern.” We were allowed one entry per category, and the submissions were completely anonymous. Because of this, I couldn’t really tell the judges that the cookies were gluten-free and vegan.
Each category had first, second, and third place winners and the prize was the title and a trophy. All I had to do to enter was show up, turn in my cookies by 12:30 pm the day of the contest, and wait.
My Gluten-Free Baking Entries
I decided to double my chances of winning by baking two different kinds of shortbread cookies. For my “traditional” cookie, I made my family shortbread recipe. I’m half Scottish (and this recipe came from the Scottish side), so I figured that was my best chance. For my “modern” cookie, I made a maple shortbread with a maple icing (much like these sandwich cookies, a favorite of Peter’s). In this case, I drew on my Canadian roots.
The final version of my “traditional” shortbread entry.
My “modern” maple shortbread cookies, with and without icing.
Why I Did It
While I could have used real butter and flour and entered this contest on an even playing field with everyone else, I really wanted to see how far I could get with my gluten-free baking (and allergy-free baking). Basically, I wanted to make something that I was able to eat to see how it would hold up in a competition.
I figured that if I won, then I’d have created pretty much the best gluten-free shortbread ever and I would have bragging rights. I also figured that if I lost (which, spoiler alert, I did), then at least I’d have improved my gluten-free baking and learned something (which I also did).
What I Learned About Gluten-Free Baking
Gluten-Free Baking vs. Regular Baking
Shortbread cookies have so few ingredients in them that there is really no room to hide when you’re using gluten-free or vegan substitutes (let alone both). I’d made both my regular and maple shortbread cookies in the past (to some extent), but never in a competitive setting.
What I realized pretty early on was that the plain shortbread was going to be more of a challenge. Not only were there only 3 ingredients, but it was important that the cookies had the right texture and flavor. They needed to have a “snap” without being crumbly, and they needed to taste buttery and not too sweet. When I’d made these cookies previously (and very recently for Christmas), they didn’t quite have a “snap” but they tasted really good. But for the sake of the contest, I really needed to get that texture right.
I actually baked a LOT of cookies to get it right, and even then I don’t think that I perfected my shortbread. In the evenings leading up to the contest, I baked 4 batches of my regular shortbread and 2 of the maple. The two maple batches were pretty similar to each other because they turned out pretty okay both times, but the first batch was a practice run. I wanted to get my maple icing right, and I needed to make sure that the cookies were good. They turned out somewhere between a shortbread cookie and a sugar cookie.
The plain shortbread, on the other hand, was much more challenging. While they initially tasted good, I struggled to make a batch that was buttery, that “snapped,” and that held together. Each batch of cookies was better in one aspect and worse in another.
Over the course of only a few days, we went from being excited to eat cookies to never wanting to eat shortbread again. My gluten-free baking was becoming a frustrating task, and we felt pretty sick from all the sugar. We hardly even ate many of the cookies, but trying each batch and making small changes was more than enough.
That being said, not all was lost in the process.
Vegan Butter
We have tried a number of vegan butter varieties in the past with lots of success, but trying to bake shortbread with them was more challenging than we’d initially thought. While some of them have somewhat of a butter taste, they don’t all have the right consistency.
Take Smart Balance, for example. This was the most buttery tasting out of the vegan butter that we tried, and it works great for spreading on bread or toast, but it also had a soft consistency. For other kinds of gluten-free baking, this isn’t an issue but our gluten-free shortbread needed something a little firmer.
We tried another one of our go-to options, Earth Balance (the soy-free one), but we ran into similar issues with consistency. While in some cookie recipes we actually like this one better because it doesn’t taste too salty (which sometimes Smart Balance can), it didn’t taste buttery enough for our shortbread.
The night before the contest, we decided to try something different: making our own vegan butter. Peter found a recipe online and we tried it out. It didn’t taste nearly as buttery as the other two options that we tried, but it had a good consistency. It actually behaved a lot like shortening.
The only problem that we had was that we didn’t have a vegan butter that did everything that we needed. Our best solution (which was Peter’s idea) was to bake the shortbread with our homemade vegan butter/shortening, and then melt some Smart Balance and bush it on top and re-bake the cookies. This helped a lot with the flavor and consistency.
Gluten-Free Flour
We’ve been on a bit of a journey with gluten-free baking and flour for quite a few months now. After Peter discovered his sorghum allergy, we’ve been trying just about everything that we can. We’ve actually been making our own gluten-free flour from scratch (which we’ll be updating you all on soon), and that’s been amazing for making our own bread.
The only problem is that it wasn’t really working for shortbread. Did our shortbread taste good with our flour? Yes. But did it have the consistency of actual shortbread? Not really.
So, another last-minute change to our shortbread came from going back to an old favorite: Pillsbury gluten-free flour. This flour contains a lot of rice flour, so it tends to produce dryer or harder gluten-free baking. It’s still a good measure-for-measure flour, but it can’t do everything. However, we realized in this case that we actually needed our flour to have that consistency in order for our shortbread to have the “snap” that it needed.
So, we decided to do a mix between our own gluten-free flour blend and the Pillsbury gluten-free flour. This, combined with our shortening-like vegan butter, gave us the most shortbread-like cookie consistency.
What I Would Do Next Time
I’ve thought about whether or not I’d actually do this contest again. Though I’m still not sure that I have the answer, I think I’d be much more prepared the next time around. I’d still try my best to win, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I lost again. Trust me, it would be amazing if I were actually able to pull it off, but considering that it took so much work just to make something that even resembled shortbread, I think it would take a lot to make winning shortbread.
But if I were to actually enter this shortbread contest again, then I would consider two options: 1) making my shortbread cookies using what I learned about vegan butter and gluten-free flour, or 2) looking for other butter alternatives. I know that there are other vegan butter varieties on the market, so I might consider buying more of them (at least the ones that I’m able to eat) and seeing how they perform.
Like I said, I don’t think that I’d win this contest in the future. But if anything I’ve learned a lot about baking shortbread. I’ve also learned a lot about gluten-free baking overall. I don’t think that I’d overhaul all of my cookie recipes, especially because most of them are much more forgiving than traditional shortbread. However, I might venture into the world of pastry-making now that I have a good shortening substitute.