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With an easy decorating technique, these delicious, Christmas Shortbread Cookies look like they came from a fine bakeshop!
Are you in the mode? Or the mood? Or whatever you want to call this getting-ready-for-the-holidays frame of mind. There's a lot to do, isn't there? Decorating, preparing for guests, making lists, checking them twice, shopping, baking. Baking... that's my sweet spot this time of year. But with everything else to do, it seems there's just not enough time. That's why these Christmas Shortbread Cookies have been a perfect way to create a delicious, festive holiday stash, without spending hours in the kitchen.
It's unusual, but Scott and I actually had the tree up, the house all decorated and most of the shopping done (thanks to Amazon) before the calendar ever flipped to December. We're usually scurrying around until the last minute, trying to check all the boxes, yet always feeling behind schedule. This year has been a little different.
We had plans to spend Thanksgiving in Memphis with our children and grandchildren and were super excited. With our daughter Cait, living in London for the past seven years, it was the first time in many years that we would have all been together for this special celebration of thankfulness. Things don't always go as planned though. Scott's dad got sick about a week before Thanksgiving and, at 95, started slipping downhill quickly. We canceled our trip in order to stay close to home.
Scott and I spent time each day with Pops (our children's name for Scott's dad) and had some sweet and tender conversations. He slept about twenty-three and a half hours a day, but whenever we visited, he would try to arouse a bit and converse with us. He rarely complained and was very gracious and thankful, even for the small things.
The weekend of Thanksgiving, we knew Pops was getting close to the end. We spent time with him each day and read to him from The Jesus Story Bible (a beautiful book for all ages). On Sunday, Scott sang Amazing Grace and Pops actually tried to join in the song a few times. When we left that day, his last words were, "I love you too". A few hours later we got a call that he had peacefully passed away, a kind hospice nurse at his side.
So, although the house is all decorated (we had lots of extra time over the long Thanksgiving weekend), it's a bittersweet holiday season for us. Pops was our last living parent. A friend of mine said something that so resonated with both Scott and me. She said that when you lose your last parent, no matter what age you are, somewhere deep inside, you feel a bit like an orphan. And now we know it's true.
It's also true that life is too short to not appreciate and cherish opportunities to spend time with loved ones. So, although baking is a favorite part of the holidays for me, I like to keep things simple. With an easy decorating technique, these fun, delicious Christmas Shortbread Cookies look like they came from a fine bake shop. Though they appear festive and professional, they are truly easy, with no fancy decorating skills necessary.
You'll need a rolling pin, a small (Wilton Number 5) round decorating tip, green food color and your choice of decorative sprinkles. The ingredient list for the cookies is short: flour, sugar and butter. That's it.
The cookies are stirred up in a bowl (no mixer needed), rolled, cut and then chilled for several hours before baking. The chilling is one of the secrets to cookies with nice crisp edges. A stint in the refrigerator helps the dough keep its shape while baking.
Another secret? Corn starch. It might sound strange, but replacing a small portion of the flour in this recipe with corn starch gives the cookies a crisp, light texture and keeps them from spreading in the oven.
The icing technique is fun and simple, making it a great project to do with kids. The tops of the delicious, buttery cookies are dipped into an icing made with powdered sugar, milk and peppermint extract.
After dipping, the cookies are allowed to dry. Later, a pretty, but simple Christmas tree is added with a piping bag and tip. It's basically just a squiggle of lines that get progressively bigger.
Add a sprinkle of nonpareils and the squiggle lines are transformed into a festive Christmas tree!
The idea for these Christmas Shortbread Cookies is not original. I was looking for some inspiration for Christmas baking back in November and came across these really cute cookies on Pinterest. When I clicked on the link, it took me to Etsy where these cookies were actually for sale. When I looked at the price, I did a double take; $36.00 for a dozen! And honestly, the cookies didn't really look super tasty.
I decided to apply the decorating idea to my favorite buttery, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread cookie recipe and made a delicious mint glaze, instead of the royal icing used on the Etsy cookies. A whole batch of these Christmas Shortbread Cookies costs less than $3.00 (that's with ingredients priced on the high side). I think I'll make my own, thank you! You can too and they'll just look like they came from a fine bake shop! You and your wallet will be secretly smiling...
P.S. If you're looking for other fun and easy cookies to make, we've got a plethora of them, just check out our cookie archives.
Café Tips for making these Christmas Shortbread Cookies
- Don't roll these cookies too thin, otherwise, they will be difficult to dip into the glaze when decorating. I roll mine to a ⅜-inch thickness and use an adjustable rolling pin. How do you roll them to the desired thickness? This reasonably priced rolling pin is a super easy way to achieve the same perfect thickness in all your cookies. It has 1/16, ⅙, ¼, and ⅜-inch removable discs, making it easy to flatten your dough to a uniform thickness. Have a baker on your shopping list? This would make a lovely gift that would be used year round.
- Because there's no mixer used, the butter needs to be very soft when mixing up these Christmas Shortbread Cookies. That can be difficult at this time of year, even if you let the butter sit out for hours. A short stint in the microwave on power level 10 (10%) works like magic to soften butter. You'll need to experiment a bit with your microwave though, as they're all different. Start with 20 or 30-second increments at power level 10 until you learn how long your microwave will take to get the butter nice and soft but not melted.
- I love to have a supply of these super sturdy decorating bags. They're not expensive and a box will last forever. The bags come in a nice flat box so they're easy to store. I used to buy my bags at the local craft store and got about 10 bags for slightly less than this whole box of 100 bags! Definitely a wonderful deal.
- Make a fun holiday project for kids with these Christmas Shortbread Cookies. You could make it simple by preparing the cookies ahead of time. Then just set up a station for decorating with fun sprinkles and tubes of icing. Or do it in two stages; mixing, rolling and baking the cookies and then decorating them later after they're cooled.
- I like to use several size cookie cutters for this recipe. It helps to utilize the rolled dough better. When you can't cut any more large cookies, sometimes you can use the smaller one on the scraps.
- A few tips on rolling and cutting out cookies:
- Keep your work surface and rolling pin lightly dusted with flour.
- I like to also rub the cutting edge of my cookie cutter in a little flour in between each cookie.
- Press fairly firmly when cutting out the cookies, but don't twist the cookie cutter as the shape will get distorted.
- If you don't have room in your refrigerator to chill the cookies on two sheet pans, just transfer all of them to one pan after cutting. Then later, once they're chilled, you can divide them between the two pans for baking.
- When re-rolling the scraps, incorporate as little of the flour on the work surface as possible.
- Occasionally some of the cookies will be slightly puffed on the top when removed from the oven. You can give them a nice flat top by pushing on the top gently with a metal spatula.
- Peppermint extracts are not all the same. Start with ¼ teaspoon in the glaze and taste. Add more as needed to achieve a nice minty flavor.
- Use any type of sprinkles you like for these Christmas Shortbread Cookies. I really like the tiny round balls called nonpareils. I find really pretty ones at Homegoods. Walmart will usually also have a nice seasonal collection, as will the big box craft stores. You can also find nonpareils online.
- One important last note: nonpareils can be like insidious little runaways and you'll find them all over your kitchen before you can blink an eye. I found that sprinkling them onto the cookies over the sink or over a large baking or sheet pan will help corral the little wandering rascals!
Another fun and easy Christmas cookie recipe. I like to call them my Snowy Night Christmas Cookies:
Snowy Night Easy Decorated Christmas Cookies
With an easy decorating technique, these fun, festive and super delicious, Christmas Shortbread Cookies look like they came from a fine bake shop!
- 8 ounces butter 2 sticks
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 4 tablespoons half and half (or milk) maybe more
- ¼-1 teaspoon peppermint extract
- 1 tablespoon very soft butter
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 ½-2 tablespoons half and half (or milk)
- ½ teaspoon peppermint extract
- 3-4 drops green food coloring
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Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper. Set aside.
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Place soft butter in a medium-size mixing bowl. Stir with a wooden spoon or sturdy spatula until nice and smooth. Add sugar and vanilla. Mix together by hand for about 1 minute, until fluffy and well blended.
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Add the flour and cornstarch. Stir until flour is incorporated and the dough is shaggy. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and press dough in a ball. Knead a few times until fairly smooth then form into a ball again and press with your hands into a flat disk.
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On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to a ⅜-inch thickness. Keep work surface, dough and rolling pin lightly (not too much) dusted with flour. Cut desired shapes and place on prepared pans. Re-roll scraps as many times as needed to use up the dough.
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Place cutouts in the refrigerator for at least one hour or up to 24 hours.
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When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350˚F. Remove cookies from refrigerator and bake for 12-16 minutes or until just beginning to turn golden at the edges. Rotate pans halfway through for even browning. Cool completely before icing.
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For the mint glaze, combine powdered sugar, half and half and ¼ teaspoon peppermint extract in a medium-size bowl. Mix until smooth. Glaze should be thick but pourable. Add a little more half and half if too thick. Taste the glaze and add more peppermint extract, if needed (see note above in post).Transfer the glaze to a shallow bowl.
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To glaze the cookies, holding onto the edge of a cookie dip the top surface into the glaze, being sure all of the surface touches the glaze. Pull cookie up and out of the glaze. Allow excess glaze to drip back into the bowl. When glaze stops dripping, quickly flip the cookie right side up and give it a gentle jiggle to allow the glaze to flow evenly over the surface. Repeat with remaining cookies. Allow glaze to dry for 15-30 minutes.
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For the buttercream piping, place butter in a medium-size bowl and stir until smooth. Add powdered sugar, 1 ½ tablespoons half and half and mint extract and stir vigorously until smooth, adding a bit more half and half if needed to achieve a thick but smooth consistency. Add food coloring, a drop at a time, to reach desired shade of green.
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Place buttercream in a pastry bag fitted with a small round icing tip (I used a Wilton #5 round tip). Starting at the upper edge of one cookie, pipe the Christmas trees by making lines that are increasingly larger, stopping about ¼-inch above the lower edge of the cookie (see pictures above). Immediately sprinkle with sprinkles of choice. Set aside to dry.
See Café Tips above for lots of extra tips and instructions.
Recipe makes a dozen large (3-inch) or two dozen smaller (2-inch) cookies.
Michele says
I made these cookies without the icing. Am now considering making them with the icing. Since it’s buttercream, I assume they don’t set hard and wouldn’t be suitable to be packed as gifts?
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Michele, it's just the trees that are actually buttercream and if you let them sit overnight that will harden fairly well so that you can serve them on a tray and overlap them or stack them between layers of parchment paper.
carrie says
I need help!
I just mixed this all up. is it supposed to be so wet?? I feel like there needs to be like 3 more cups of flour in here....
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Carrie, if the dough is really wet, I suspect that something went wrong. This dough should be fairly firm and easy to roll.
SY says
Hi, may I know how to modify your recipe to make chocolate flavoured cookies? Thanks 🙂
Chris Scheuer says
Hi SY, I would have to do some testing to give you good advice on these cookies in a chocolate version. I'm thinking of doing that for Valentine's Day.
Cindy Wienkers says
This is my favorite shortbread recipe! Perfect with a "cuppa" tea. I love to mix it up. My favorites are either almond or lemon. I keep them simple with just a light icing glaze. I have made them with vanilla and half dipped them in chocolate but my family prefers without the chocolate.
Chris Scheuer says
Thanks so much for letting us know, Cindy!
Dotty says
I'm so upset as I made a test batch using this recipe and I ATE THE ENTIRE BATCH in two days...well my husband got a couple. I won't fit in my Christmas Outfit. Seriously, this recipe was so easy to follow, the tips were spot on and in my...and my husband's opinion, the cookies were great. I was going for Taste, Texture and Appearance and feel I accomplished all. When I got to the cutout, I got one cookie before having to refrigerate the dough for about an hour and re-roll it. I then was able to finish cutting the batch. I will make the glaze a tad thicker next time but overall it tasted good and hardened well. I used both peppermint and almond flavor in the glaze and preferred the almond but will add a little more peppermint next week and make both again. Thanks so much for a great recipe and I am praying that my party batch is as good as the test batch. I'll be happy just to have help eating them. Happy Holidays!
Chris Scheuer says
Thank you so much for leaving a review, Dotty!
Khris says
This recipe sounds delicious but I just wondered if you can use an electric mixer rather than mixing by hand. Thank you.
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Khris, yes, you can definitely use an electric mixer. Just don't overmix when you add the flour.
Kimberly says
Hi there, trying this out. Wanted to double check on the buttercream ingreds. Is it really 1 tbsp of butter to a cup of sugar?
Chris Scheuer says
That is correct, Kimberly! It's more of a glaze than a thick buttercream.
SY says
I'm thinking of trying this recipe for Christmas, but was wondering if instead of piping the Christmas tree, I could use one made from fondant instead? If yes, do I need to wait for the icing to dry first?
Chris Scheuer says
You could definitely do that. But add it while the icing is wet so it sticks.
Janice Mead says
These are my very favorite cookies to make. They always roll out perfectly and taste lovely. I have also used coconut flavoring to change it up a bit. A cookie for every holiday! Thank you!
Chris Scheuer says
Thanks so much, Janice!
Rebecca says
I am so happy I stumbled upon your website! I took a cookie decorating class last year and wanted to do cut outs for the Christmas cookie exchange this year. I did a practice run and realized that icing the cookies was going to take forever, especially if I wanted to do stencils with royal icing. So I googled how to quickly ice cookies and your website popped up. The dip, drip and flip technique took no time at all compared to using a bag and piping the icing out. The cookies set up beautifully for my stencils. Thanks again for the recipe. I will be using this every year.
Chris Scheuer says
I'm so glad, Rebecca! Thanks so much for letting us know!
Tina says
Is this dough soft enough to use in a cookie press with the disks that make different shapes?
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Tina, I haven't tried that with this dough. I would get it would work but I can't say for sure.
Kendall says
I love this recipe. Last time I made them though, I got bubbles in my cookies which makes it hard to decorate! Any suggestions?
Chris Scheuer says
So happy you enjoyed these, Kendall! Regarding the bubbles, are you talking about the cookies or the icing?
Annaliese says
Do you think Icould use the watercolor painting technique over the icing? Or do you think it would be better to do royal icing? I'm trying to switch it up from sugar cookies but still want to paint on them.
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Annaliese, I think that royal icing would be better if you want to paint on them.
Amie says
Made these yesterday and they were perfection. These will be going into my repertoire. A very easy and basic recipe with endless possibilities for any occasion.
Chris Scheuer says
So true, Amie! These are so adaptable! So happy you enjoyed them!
Teresa says
Does this icing dry well enough the cookies could be stacked after drying to put in goody bags for gifts?
Chris Scheuer says
Yes, it will dry nicely Teresa. Just let the cookies sit out for several hours to allow the icing to harden.
Kara says
These taste amazing!! but sadly my cute cut outs baked into an unrecognizable blob. I may have not let them chill as long as they should have. I will try again with success. Thank you!
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Kara, sorry you had trouble with these cookies. Definitely give them a good chill. Also, some butters have a higher water content than others. If the dough seems really soft when you're rolling it, add a little extra flour on the counter as you roll our the dough
Susie says
Hi can you make the dough ahead? Thank you
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Susie, you can make it ahead and refrigerate the dough. Let it sit a bit at room temp before rolling though.
Heather says
Thank you for this recipe. These turned out perfect, the recipe was very easy to follow and the cookies taste great.
Happy Holidays!
Chris Scheuer says
Thanks Heather! I appreciate you sharing your results!
Steph says
Made a half batch this evening and I’m very pleased! The cookies are delicious and festive- looking. I need to work on my piping work but I’m looking forward to using this recipe to bake cookies as holiday gifts. Thank you so much!
Chris Scheuer says
Yay! So happy these worked out well for you, Steph!
Erin says
Great recipe! Very easy to work with loved the results!
Chris Scheuer says
Yay! Thanks for sharing your results, Erin! 💕
Tracey Dolan says
Hi tried this recipe today and they are lovely but quite soft? Did I do something wrong or is this how they are? Doesn’t affect the over all taste at all and they are not too sweet which is great
Thank you
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Tracey, they shouldn't be soft. They should be crisp yet tender. It's hard to say why yours are soft without having been right there in the kitchen with you.
Cathy Klabunde says
Where did you get the scalloped cookie cutter. I’ve looked everywhere & no one has this type.
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Cathy, I got it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3lLeXUK
Maria Cristina says
I made these this past holiday season and they were a total success. Amazing flavor, great texture and so beautiful! I made the mistake of stacking and storing them in warm place so the frosting melted - they definitely need to be stored in a cool room or the fridge.
Chris Scheuer says
I'm so happy you enjoyed them, Maria.
The cookies will keep well at room temperature as I just found some that I had hidden at Christmas in an airtight storage container in the back of a cabinet - but I'm sure they would not do well in a warm spot.
Missy J says
These cookies are fantastic. Made them twice this holiday season. I used almond extract in the batter , rather than vanilla. Half of the cookies got an additional almond flavored glaze, the remaining half got a peppermint glaze. I can’t tell which one I like the best! They are soooo good. We will be returning to this recipe again and again.
Chris Scheuer says
Yum! They sound wonderful, Missy! Thanks for sharing your results!
Elsie says
Can these cookies be made ahead of time and frozen??
Chris Scheuer says
Yes, they can, although they keep well for several weeks in an airtight container too.
Andrea says
AMAZING! I have failed at the last 5 attempts at baking and this recipe has cured my curse. They are so good and I love the hint of peppermint. I’m going to try them with lemon zest next time 🙂 thank you! And I used salted butter as I saw that in one of the comments in this thread.
Chris Scheuer says
Thanks so much, Andrea, for sharing your results. I'm so happy you broke the curse! Lemon zest (or lemon extract) will be wonderful. Merry Christmas!
Donna says
The cookies tasted good but left a coating on my mouth that I didn’t care for. I think it was from the cornstarch. If I were to make them again, I would use less cornstarch.