In Honor of Tell A Fairy Tale Day today, a FREE book with Fairy Tales and Recipes!

FREE today and full of fun stories and recipes!

It's Tell A Fairy Tale Day! What better than The Mall Fairies Sweet Tooth Cookbook, full of tales of my Mall Fairies? And to give you a taste, here's a story and a recipe from the cookbook, with our heroine, Swoop. Enjoy!

SWOOP SAVES THE COOKIE LADY

Now, I don’t like humans. Overall, they’re not a good thing for fairies. Overall, they’re dangerous for fairies. Overall, they’re fatal for fairies. Yeah, sure, we fairies live in the attic of a shopping mall that is full of humans, but they don’t know we’re here. If they manage to spot us, they think we’re birds or, ugh, bats. And that includes the Cookie Lady. We sure know the Cookie Lady exists, though. Her store in the mall’s Food Court is our favorite. Or it was. A couple of weeks ago, a sign showed up in her window saying the Cookie Lady would close soon.

We fairies panicked. No more snickerdoodles (my favorite), chocolate toffee squares or even the chocolate peanut butter no-bake oatmeal cookies? Unthinkable. So I snuck into the air conditioning vent to spy. And while almost freezing to death, I discovered that the Cookie Lady’s sales had fallen way off. The stupid humans had gotten bored with her selection. Who could get bored with snickerdoodles?

At first, I believed we were doomed to be cookie-less forever more, but then when I spotted the Cookie Lady working on the her computer and leaving it up and running, I got a great idea. It took three hours of me surfing the Internet by jumping up and down on the keys (I’m only five and a half inches tall) but I found a great new recipe for the Cookie Lady to try. I added directions for a “cookie launch” and left the printout where she’d be sure to find it. She took the idea and added more new cookie selections including mine, and now all the fairies and humans are gaining weight from eating all her cookies. And the Cookie Lady’s store is saved!

Here’s the recipe I found:

 WALNUT SHORTBREAD

Ingredients:

1/2 cup walnuts                                    

1 cup white flour

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, or baking margarine, room temperature, plus more for pan

1/2 cup chocolate bits (mini baking choc. bits work best, but any chocolate is great)

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 325. Pulse walnuts in grinder until finely ground. Transfer to bowl, add flour & stir thoroughly. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy, add flour mix and beat until combined. Stir in chocolate bits. Butter 8 inch round cake pan, place dough in pan, cover with plastic wrap and press until dough is spread evenly in pan. Cut with sharp knife into eight wedges, prick all over with fork. Bake until golden and firm in center, 30-35 minutes. Re-cut into wedges and prick again. Done!

VARIATIONS: This works well with other nuts, especially pecans. But cashews, Brazil nuts and macadamia nuts may be used. Be sure the nuts are unsalted and not roasted and check the shortbread often to make sure it's not getting overdone. May also substitute coconut oil for the butter.

If you've enjoyed this story, check out my 3 in 1 book bundle, The Mall Fairies and save a bundle on these two novels and stand alone short story!

And to my readers, what's your favorite shortbread recipe? Mine is the one above, as it's simple and easy, two of my favorites!