Shortbread Redux

I have no new recipes up my sleeve today. What can I say... excuses always sound lame, but it's been busy. More about that later.

Recently, I revisited one of my older recipes from March: Orange Coriander Shortbread. For Mother's Day, it seemed appropriate to send Mom something home-made from my own repertoire. To give it a personalized twist, I tried three flavor variations. Going clockwise from bottom left: (1) Lavender Orange, (2) Kaffir Lime Leaf and Lemongrass, and (3) Vanilla Poppy.

Not mentioned in the names is the grated lime rind that went into (2) -- Kaffir Lime Leaf Lime Rind Lemongrass sounded a little excessive. For (3), I scraped seeds from a vanilla pod rather than use vanilla extract. I like how the specks of vanilla blend right in with the poppy seeds.

The only thing I would do differently is to omit the lemongrass... as much as I adore its aromas, even finely ground lemongrass is too fibrous and clashes with the delicate texture of shortbread.

Happy belated Mother's Day to all you fabulous Moms out there!