Double (say it) neufchâtel

I failed. Yesterday anyway.  Well the day before if you want to be specific.  The recipe mentioned in my last post didn't work well at all when butter was replaced by (say it) neufchâtel cheese.  There, I said it.  I blew it.  I hate throwing cookies away.

I personally think it was part recipe(cornstarch), part that it needed some butter. Either way, I tried a different recipe, that called for more flour (of which I replaced one cup flour for rice flour). I think my failure had to do with the higher moisture content in the (say it) neufchâtel cheese and the corn starch, the cookie produced was tough and weirdly chewy and just no bueno. 

I've not had much luck with cookie recipes containing corn starch come to think of it. The recipe listed in the previous post was rated pretty high on Allrecipes.com but the fact that I hadn't tried it yet just shows that I clearly need to try all these ideas of mine before I go broadcasting, so I solemnly swear from now on to try these things first.  BuuuUuuut I did try again, as you knew I would.  As usual, the link to the actual recipe is at the bottom and all my tweaks are in red.  So here goes:

Shortbread Cookies II

• 2 cups butter, softened *I used one stick butter and 4 oz (say it) neufchatel cheese
• 1 cup white sugar *I used a bit over 3/4 cup splenda
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract *didn't have any (GAH!) so put 2 tsp lemon juice in instead
• 4 cups all-purpose flour *3 cups all purpose flour, one cup rice flour.  In the future I'd do more rice flour, less wheat.  My grandmother makes shortbread with just rice flour and it's awesome
•  *I put in the zest of one orange, you could do lemon too.  You could add cocoa powder too, maybe 1/4 cup.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Stir in vanilla; add flour and mix well. 
3. I found the cookie dough to be WAY to dry for anything but smooshing into a 9" pie plate.  I also reserved some for a pie crust for my diabetic friendly pumpkin custard pie, details tba.  
4. Put through cookie press and form cookies onto baking sheets. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes.  Baked shortbread laden pie plate for probably around 45 -50 minutes.  Did I mention AWESOME?!

Nutritional Information

Amount Per Serving  Calories: 490 | Total Fat: 31.1g | Cholesterol: 81mg Powered by ESHA Nutrient Database

Nutritional Information

Shortbread Cookies II

Servings Per Recipe: 12
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 490

• Total Fat: 31.1g
• Cholesterol: 81mg
• Sodium: 219mg
• Total Carbs: 48.6g I cut this into something like 16 pieces (I didn't count before we ate nearly all of it), not including the amount I set aside for pie.  So, maybe 4 g carb per cookie if I guess that my reserve would have made 4 more cookies.
•     Dietary Fiber: 1.1g
• Protein: 4.6g

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Shortbread-Cookies-II/Detail.aspx