Karin's Espresso Shortbread

I've had dreams about this cookie.  I woke up drooling and hungry.  I'm in a cooking club with some ultra hip foodie lovers.  We meet once a month with a specific theme, and we discuss food and we eat.  We've had some absolutely delicious, high quality, foods over these past few years.  For the first few years in December, we would meet to exchange cookies.  Karin made "Coffee-spice and Crystalized Ginger shortbread" from Epicurious.  She tweaked the recipe a bit, switched out the coffee and made it espresso, and developed a bold cookie. It's FULL of a strong coffee flavor, NOT sweet but SPICY, with great crumbly texture, and beautiful powdered sugar drizzle.  These cookies need to be enjoyed alone on a rainy day.  (These cookies are NOT for sharing!!)  Get a small plate, a cup of coffee, a book or a newspaper (put your phone down for a minute), and enjoy a break.  Think happy thoughts, eat spicy cookies, drink strong coffee, listen to the rain.  Everyone needs an indulgence from time to time.

Karin's Espresso Shortbread

adapted from Coffee-spice and Crystalized Ginger shortbread by Epicurious.com

Ingredients
2 cups flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 Tablespoons instant espresso
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup, two sticks butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes, chilled
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons water (maybe more)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
OPTIONAL: 6 tablespoons crystallized ginger

1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2.  Add flour, brown sugar, espresso, ginger, cardamon and salt into a food processor for 5 seconds.  Scatter butter around the top of the dry ingredients and pulse until most clumps begin to form.  (this dough will be very crumbly...its OK, do not panic!)
3.  Pour crumbs onto a cutting board, and use clean dry hands to form the dough into a ball.   (The dough may still seem crumbly at this point, again, that's okay....short bread is supposed to be like that.)  Divide the dough into two equal parts, and put each part into a 9 inch diameter tart pans with a removable bottom.  Press dough firmly into each tart pan.
4.  Bake for 25 minutes, rotate pans and positions in the oven, and continue to bake for another 20 minutes or until the cookies are a dark golden brown, and have a SLIGHTLY soft center.  Remove from oven and cut each warm shortbread into 12 wedges.  Let cool completely.
5.  Make glaze by combining powdered sugar, water and vanilla.  Either use a off-set spatula to spread the glaze on top of the shortbread, or use a spoon or fork to drizzle the glaze over the top of the shortbread.  ("It looks like spiderwebs"-Jett, age 3).  Let glaze set until solid, about one hour.
OPTIONAL: chop the crystallized ginger and sprinkle on top of glazed shortbread, before the glaze has set.