i hate working. in my ideal life, i would not work at all. HOWEVER i work with a ton of people whose stress response is to do more work? pretty fucked up relationship to productivity you got there.
on top of all this pandemic stuff, we're dealing with a family crisis, and there's almost this unstated expectation to work more, like work would be a good distraction from the stress i'm feeling. it's not.
i solved the shortbread issue by using the recipe that worked before and modifying it slightly. i browned 1 stick of butter + 1 tbsp powdered milk (to increase the amount of milk solids available to brown). i left the other stick + 6 tbsp alone. i didn't have pretzels so i used 50g combined of rye and whole wheat flour which i toasted until slightly darkened. i also used toasted sugar and 15g of malted milk powder.
these turned out suuuper toasty and straddling the line between sweet and savory.