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Nothing puts me in the holiday spirit quite like spending a snowy afternoon in a warm kitchen whipping up a batch of Christmas treats. If baking isn’t your forte (like me!), you’ll want a simple, straight forward, tried, tested, and true recipe, so here’s one that’s about as simple as cookies get (aside from Pillsbury). Not to mention, they’re delicious!

Christmas Shortbread Cookies

Tools:

  • Electric mixer
  • Plastic wrap
  • Parchment paper
  • Cookie sheets
  • Rolling pin
  • Cookie cutters
  • Oven

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:

  1. First, make sure the butter is at room temperature. You can either get it out the night before and leave it in a butter dish to warm up, or put it in a bowl in the microwave for about a minute on low power. Watch it though, you want it soft, but not melted.
  2. In a bowl, whisk together the salt with the flour.
  3. In the mixer, beat the butter for about 1 minute on a medium setting until smooth.
  4. Add the sugar and beat for another 2 minutes until mixed together.
  5. Add the vanilla and beat for a few seconds until it mixes in.
  6. Using a low setting on the mixer or a spatula, mix in the flour/salt mixture with the butter/sugar/vanilla mixture until combined. It should look like cookie dough now!
  7. Spread out a layer of plastic wrap and sprinkle it with a pinch of flour. Put the dough in the plastic wrap and wrap it up tightly in a bundle. Put it in the fridge to chill for at least an hour, up to over night.
  8. When dough is chilled, preheat oven to 350 and line the cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  9. Using your rolling pin, roll out the dough to about 1/4 thickness. Cut out your cookies using whatever cookie cutter shapes you have on hand, and place the shapes on the cookie sheets.
  10. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until cookies are golden.

What Do You Think?

Do you do any holiday baking? What sort of treats do you like to make? What do you think of our shortbread recipe? Leave us a comment and let us know!

3 Comments

  1. avatar Nikki says:

    I’m just wondering if someone could to tell me how many cookies on batch will make…?
    I have to make 12 dozen and need to know how many ingredients to get!
    Thanks a bunch!

  2. avatar sandie says:

    Making your cookies for Xmas…they should be tasting good

  3. avatar Elle says:

    Thanks for the recipe! I just started on a variation, it’s chilling in the fridge- I used brown sugar instead of powdered, added a dash of cinnamon and mixed it a little differently, but this was a great starting point!

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