Whenever I think of injeolmi, I think of my dear friend, Ellie. Ellie and I were classmates since elementary school, all the way through high school, and we went to college at Boston College and Boston University respectively(meaning that we would see each other often during our formative adult years). She is one of the most positive, hardworking, humble, and intelligent people I have ever met, and I am super grateful to have someone like her as a friend. The reason why injeolmi(a toasted Korean grain blend) reminds me of her specifically is that she gifted me with a back of it, straight from her grandmother in Seoul, years ago. And since then, I still have that same bag of injeolmi in my freezer, waiting for the next time I get to make a truly special recipe with it. These shortbreads are that recipe. The beautiful thing about a shortbread cookie is that sandy, coarse texture that is contrasted with a rich, buttery flavor. Injeolmi, being a grain blend, lends itself well to having a sandier texture in baked goods, while the flavor, being similar to a mild peanut butter-sesame situation, works beautifully against butter and sugar! So it just made perfect sense to go with a shortbread that is flavored with injeolmi. And to add more textures through this cookie, I also added dulcey into the dough. Dulcey, also known as blonde chocolate, is a white chocolate that has been slowly roasted, resulting in the sugars in the white chocolate caramelizing and giving the blonde chocolate a butterscotch-like flavor to it. And I also rolled the entire cookie in coarse Indian sugar crystals, which added a crunchy exterior to the cookie itself, and a gorgeous crystalized aesthetic.

For the recipe itself, it is pretty easy to do, especially if you have a food processor. By using a food processor, the cookie dough comes together in basically 2 minutes. And from there, all you need to do is chill it down, roll it in egg white and Indian sugar, cut out the cookies, and off to bake! Now if you do not have a food processor, there might a lot of arm work that goes into this recipe. You have to essentially mix the butter, flour, Injeolmi, and sugar together until the butter coats all of those flour granules, resulting in this powdery dough-like situation. An egg yolk is added to that to both bind the dough, and give it a rich, melt-in-the-mouth finish when it is finally baked off. It is key not to overwork the dough, be it by hand or with a food processor, or else the cookies will be dense and tough. A good shortbread should be sandy in crumb texture(which is why in French, shortbreads are called “sable”, which translates to “sandy”), and have enough aeration in the cookie itself that it breaks away and melts in your mouth the moment it comes into contact with your teeth. So once you add the egg yolk to the dough, work quickly to bring it all together, and once the dough comes together in a solid mass, you are good to go. Since I crusted these shortbread cookies in sugar, I did roll the dough into a log, and refrigerated that so that it would be easier to cut the log into disks, which was what I did after rolling the log in some Indian sugar crystals. The Indian sugar crystals(thank you forever, Shari!) have this addictive crunch to them, and stay relatively unchanged through the baking process, so they give the cookie a glimmery, diamond-like exterior. You can substitute that with some turbinado or sanding sugar if you do not have a way to procure Indian sugar yourself!

Makes 16-20 shortbread cookies:
For the dough:
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cups Injeolmi powder
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 stick unsalted butter
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup coarsely chopped dulcey(blonde chocolate)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk

In a bowl, mix the flour, Injeolmi, sugar, butter, and salt until everything is combined into a sandy-textured dough. To that, mix in the blonde chocolate first, and then the vanilla and egg yolk to form your dough. Place your dough onto about a 15 inch-long strip of cling wrap and be sure to cover the entire dough in it. Roll the dough until it forms a log that is about a 12-inch long by 2-inch in diameter log of dough. Refrigerate the dough log for at least 1 hour. It should be completely solid.

For garnish:
1 1/2 cups Indian sugar crystals
1 egg white

Pour enough Indian sugar crystals to cover the bottom of a 12-inch long sheet tray. Remove your dough log and brush half of the exterior with egg white. Place that side down onto the Indian sugar crystals, and then brush the other side with more egg white. Roll the entire dough log into the crystals, making sure that everything is covered in it. Cut out 1/4 inch-thick disks from the dough and place onto a lined sheet tray, keeping each disk of dough about 2 inches apart from each other. Bake at 375 degrees F for 10 minutes. Allow the cookies to fully cool before removing from the sheet tray and transferring to an airtight container.