Tag Archives: best shortbread recipe

Christina Tosi’s Take on Ted Lasso Biscuits

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Pastry Chef Christina Tosi's version of the "Ted Lasso'' biscuits are even better than the original.
Pastry Chef Christina Tosi’s version of the “Ted Lasso” biscuits are even better than the original.

If you’re experiencing “Ted Lasso” withdrawal like me, there’s only one thing that can assuage it.

And that’s baking a batch of buttery biscuits, otherwise known in the States as shortbread cookies.

You’ll remember I tried my hand at the official “Ted Lasso Biscuit Recipe,” which were wonderful and super easy to make.

But what tops it is Pastry Chef Christina Tosi’s version.

The founder of the sugary phenomenon known as Milk Bar, Tosi is a Lasso fan, and recounts hilariously in this Bloomberg story how she would rewind episodes to meticulously study just how everyone’s favorite soccer coach made his biscuits.

The recipe she came up with takes a couple of liberties that definitely enhance the original. Don’t get me wrong; the original recipe turns out shortbread that’s crisp on the edges, tender within, and incredibly melt-in-your-mouth buttery delicious. They are good, basic, and classic.

But hers go beyond that, keeping everything you love about shortbread, but refining it to make it utterly exceptional.

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Bigger Bolder Irish Shortbread For Trying Times

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We all need a big, buttery cookie in these trying times.
We all need a big, buttery cookie in these trying times. Plus, you can play Jenga with it!

In a crisis, some people hoard toilet paper.

I bake.

And apparently, from the looks of social media, I’m not the only one. Peppering the updates of so many of my friends lately are photos and confessions of baking to ease the mind or merely distract from the news of late.

I readily admit that I sometimes fall victim to procrastibaking — ignoring writing deadlines only to bake a batch of cookies instead. Stress baking is merely its close cousin.

Psychologists have explained that those who hoard toilet paper or empty grocery shelves in a panic are only trying to exercise control in a world that now seems very much out of our hands. We can’t guarantee we won’t catch a deadly coronavirus. But darned if we can’t make sure our pantries and cupboards are filled to capacity.

And so, I bake. Because if I’m going down, I’m doing so fighting — and with a ready-steady supply of buttery sweet treats.

“Bigger Bolder Irish Shortbread” is ideal at times like this. It’s from the new cookbook, “Bigger Bolder Baking: A Fearless Approach to Baking Anytime, Anywhere” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019), of which I received a review copy.

It’s by Gemma Stafford, an Irish-born chef and creator of the YouTube baking show, “Bigger Bolder Baking,” who now makes her home in Los Angeles.

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