Chocolate-Dipped Shortbread

[SugarGirl]

I'm fully dipping shortbread in tempered chocolate, but for every batch that I make, a few finished ones develop blotches of a fatty film on the bottom. It seems like fat from the butter is leaking out from the cookie. It usually happens at a weak point in the chocolate coating, but there's sometimes no discernible point of exit.

Any ideas how this could be prevented?

The shortbread is made with very soft butter, salt, sugar, and flour, and baked until golden brown. It's a crunchy shortbread.

I've tried pre-coating the cookie in untempered chocolate b/c I thought that maybe the tempered chocolate was contracting too strongly directly on the cookie... but it didn't make a difference. Neither did baking them the night before, and putting them on paper towels to soak up some fat.

Maybe some sort of starch would help? I want to keep it as crunchy as possible, though...

[gfron1]

I love investigative stuff like this

I wonder if its not the cookie butter that's causing the problem. Any chance that its your chocolate blooming? My thought is that you're setting it on a cold pan causing the blooming.

If this can't be fixed (which I know it can), you can also dip in nuts to hide the flaw.

[highchef]

I've never had that problem. I dip ginger shortbread cookies in white choclate for Christmas and they stay put. The starch angle may make sense, my shortbreads use rice flour and it creates a certain crumb that probably (imho) just takes on any butterfat trying to leach out.

I'm thinking this is a cookie that is perhaps 'too fat'???

edit: thinking too fat in the way of heavy..rice flour is a different critter than reg. flour and gives a certain type of crumb. lite and crunchy and they keep very, very well.

Edited November 8, 2007 by highchef (log)

[helenjp]

You mentioned that the shortbread is crunchy and golden brown. With the high proportion of butter used in shortbread, I've noticed that "overbaked" shortbread someties seems greasier, as if the butter was no longer absorbed by the flour.

I hope a more experienced baker can comment, because I don't want to send you off on a wild goose chase, but I think I'd go for a slightly higher sugar content and a longer baking time rather than a higher temperature, if I wanted more browning and crunchiness.

(Hoping I'm not way, way, off target!)

[Cadbury]

I've had this problem with other shortbread type recipes, and I have discovered that it happens when the soft butter required is too soft. A warm kitchen can make it worse. HTH

[SugarGirl]

Wow, thanks everyone!

I'm going two try out two different batches -- one with a percentage of the flour substituted with rice flour (which I'd prefer over cornstarch; but I don't want to change change the flavor/texture too much, so maybe just 10%...?) and one with a slightly firmer butter. I'll report back.

gfron1 - hehe Glad you love this investigative stuff. I hadn't thought about the possibility of too cold of a pan, but other chocolate-dipped things that I make are fine. The film of fat is quite liquid -- it never really sets solid like cocoa butter and can be wiped off with a paper towel (sometimes the liquid fat returns, sometimes it doesn't), so I think it's butter fat.

highchef - Yeah, I'm afraid that the cookie is too fat, too... Oddly enough, though, I've tried to decrease the butter by as little as 5%, and it doesn't taste as good. As I said, I'll try some rice flour.

helenjp - That is true, about the greasier browned shortbread -- when it's brown all the way through, it gets funky, esp when dipped. I bake a slab at 300F, then lower it to 275F, over the course of an hour or longer ( I cut it up about 35 minutes into it, and lower the temp so it doesn't brown all the way through), so I should have said that it's golden brown on the bottom but a bit lighter on the top. I think that you're right, though... proper doneness is crucial.

Cadbury - Thanks, will try a cooler butter.

[PastryGuru]

It seems like your recipe for shortbread isn't balanced (too much fat/not enough flour). If you get a moment, feel free to post it and maybe I can help.

[Kerry Beal]

Sounds like it might be fat bloom. There are some suggestions here for preventing fat bloom.

Essentially you can add some milk chocolate or some clarified butter to your chocolate before tempering. The beauty of the added butter is how 'melt in the mouth' it makes the chocolate.

[SugarGirl]

Ok, so I tried substituting some rice flour for the flour, but it was a little too crumbly for me so I didn't enrobe it. Using colder butter helped a bit -- there were fewer leaks. Creaming the butter at about 65F seemed eliminate the problem, but I want to try it again to make sure. It changed the texture a little bit, but was still nice and crunchy inside the chocolate

Pastry Guru - It's 4oz butter, 1/2 tsp salt, 2.6 oz sugar, and 5 oz flour. Really delicious... and fatty, it's true. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Kerry - Thanks. Well, it happens with a milk chocolate coating, too... and I'm not sure if I'd want to add even more butter to these things. But really, I like the chocolate to be snappy for them, too. I thought that fat bloom was cloudy, not wet? The chocolate itself looks fine otherwise.

[Lior]

I've never had that problem. I dip ginger shortbread cookies in white choclate for Christmas and they stay put. The starch angle may make sense, my shortbreads use rice flour and it creates a certain crumb that probably (imho) just takes on any butterfat trying to leach out.

I'm thinking this is a cookie that is perhaps 'too fat'???

edit: thinking too fat in the way of heavy..rice flour is a different critter than reg. flour and gives a certain type of crumb. lite and crunchy and they keep very, very well.

←

Hello. Could you share your rice flour recipe with me? It is gluten free if there is no wheat flour and that would interest me immensely!!

Thanks!

Edited November 24, 2007 by Lior (log)