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These one-bowl, no-mixer Christmas Tree Shortbread Cookies are delicious and the pretty decorating technique is super simple!
Are you ready for one more fun Christmas cookie idea? I was in the middle of rolling and cutting out my Easy Decorated Christmas Cookies when the inspiration for these Christmas Tree Shortbread Cookies came flitting through my brain. I was so excited that, right away, I had to pull out a Christmas tree cookie cutter and some green food coloring to give the idea a try. When I showed my swirly little trees to Scott, he loved them and thought each one was a work of art. I thought you might enjoy making (and giving) these easy cookies too!
Buttery, delicious and clean crisp edges - a win, win, win!
I searched for years for the perfect shortbread recipe. I wanted one that was not only buttery and melt-in-your-mouth delicious, but also one that would keep nice crisp edges when baked. I discarded one recipe after another until I discovered this one. Just the right proportion of butter, sugar and flour, as well as a small amount of cornstarch, are a few of the secrets to this delicious shortbread dough that keeps its shape in the oven.
On top of tasting fantastic and exhibiting good behavior in the oven, this dough can be made in one bowl with no mixer. I dearly love my KitchenAid mixer but when I'm in a hurry, (almost always) it's really nice to pull out just one bowl and a wooden spoon or sturdy spatula. Within minutes, my dough is mixed up and ready to roll!
A fun and easy decorating technique
The technique for these Christmas Tree Shortbread Cookies is nothing new here at The Café. I'm not much of a fancy cake/cookie decorator. So when I discovered this easy method of making cookies look like they came from a fine bake shop, I was thrilled. I call it my Dip, Drip and Flip technique and I've used it for several fun seasonal cookies, including these Glazed Shortbread Cutout Cookies, these Red, White and Blue Glazed Shortbread Cookies as well as my Easy Thanksgiving Shortbread Cookies. It's a foolproof way to decorate beautiful cookies!
How does it work? I thought you might want to see the technique in action, so I had Scott take a few shots while I iced these pretty Christmas Tree Shortbread Cookies. Check it out!
You can see it's pretty simple. Mix up a two-ingredient glaze then add your flavoring of choice. (I love to use peppermint extract at Christmas time, but lemon, almond, coconut and orange extracts are also delicious.) Next step is swirling a bit of green gel food coloring into the white glaze. Hold one of the Christmas Tree Shortbread Cookies over the glaze and dip the top side to coat. Pull straight up and let the icing drip, then flip the cookie over and voila! Bakeshop quality that even a child can have success with!
I thought I'd also share a video of this Dip, Drip and Flip decorating technique.
It's from my Red, White and Blue Glazed Shortbread Cookies but the technique is the same.
So pull out a bowl - you have flour, butter, powdered sugar, milk (or half and half) and vanilla, right? That's all you need, other than the green food coloring. But one more thing and this is essential! Find your favorite version of "O Tannenbaum" and be sure to have it playing while you mix, roll, cut out and bake. I had this wonderful version by the three tenors BLARING. I also love this rendition by Andrea Bocelli. It will put you in the proper spirit to make these Christmas Tree Shortbread Cookies!
Café Tips for making these Christmas Tree Shortbread Cookies
- 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.
- Another technique I often use to soften butter is to put it in the oven or microwave overnight with the light on. To keep the light on in the microwave I put a folded paper towel in the door. It works like a charm!
- I used Wilton's Leaf Green and Kelly Green gel food colorings for my Christmas Tree 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 for 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 can be used year-round. You might even be the lucky recipient of some perfect, even Easy Decorated Christmas Cookies!
- I used peppermint extract in my glaze and buttercream. Feel free to use other flavorings. Almond, vanilla, orange, lemon and coconut extracts are also delicious.
- Flavor extracts can vary in intensity. It’s better to start with a small amount in the icing, then take a little taste. You can always add more, but you can’t remove it!
- The recipe calls for a one hour (or longer) chill for the cutout cookies. If I’m in a big hurry, I just pop them into the freezer for 10-15 minutes (don’t tell anyone I cheat!).
- A few tips on rolling and cutting out cookies:
- Keep your work surface and rolling pin lightly dusted with flour.
- I also like to 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.
- Sometimes the glaze for these cookies will have lots of bubbles. These bubbles will cause imperfections in the surface of the glazed cookies. Simply stir the glaze very slowly to get rid of the bubbles.
- If you let the glazed cookies drip into the same bowl over and over the glaze will get murky before you're finished icing all the cookies. Because of this, I like to let the glaze drip into a separate bowl.
- I used this set of Christmas tree cutters and this one.
- 8 ounces very soft butter
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 4-5 tablespoons half and half (or milk)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- ¼ teaspoon peppermint extract
- 2 colors of green gel paste 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 powdered sugar and vanilla. Mix together by hand for about 30 seconds until well blended.
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Add the flour and cornstarch. Stir until dry ingredients are incorporated. The dough will be a little shaggy. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and gather into a ball.
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Knead 5-6 times until fairly smooth and all the small pieces are worked in. Form into a ball again and flatten with your hand to form a flat disk. Turn the disk to coat both sides with flour.
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Roll out the dough to an approximate ⅜-inch thickness (see Café Tips above in the post). Keep work surface, dough and rolling pin lightly dusted with flour. Cut out Christmas trees (in one or more sizes) and transfer to prepared pans with a thin, metal spatula. 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. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350˚F. Remove 1 pan of cutouts from the refrigerator and bake for 12-14 minutes, or until just beginning to turn golden at the edges. Rotate pans halfway through for even browning. Repeat with the second pan of cutouts.
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Cool completely before icing.
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Combine powdered sugar, 4 tablespoons half and half (or milk), vanilla and peppermint extract in a medium-size bowl. Mix until smooth. The glaze should be fairly thick, but pourable. Add a little more half and half if too thick. Taste the glaze and add more extract, if a more intense flavor is desired.
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Transfer the glaze to a small shallow bowl (a little bigger than your cookies). With a toothpick, swirl a small amount of two green gel food colorings through the icing in the bowl. Don’t swirl too much or the icing will become a solid color. Use a light hand with the gel food coloring. A little goes a long way!
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To glaze the cookies, hold onto the edge of a cookie and dip the top surface into the glaze, being sure all of the surface touches the glaze. Pull cookie straight up and out of the glaze. Allow excess glaze to drip into another bowl or plate (this will keep the glaze from getting murky) for about 30 seconds. When glaze stops dripping, quickly flip the cookie to the right side up and give it a gentle jiggle to allow the glaze to flow evenly over the surface. Repeat with remaining cookies.
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Place cookies on a cooling rack and allow glaze to dry completely.
Makes 10-20 cookies, depending on the size of your cookie cutters. See Café Tips above in post for more detailed instructions and tips. I got my Christmas tree cookie cutters from Amazon.
Tracy says
Beautiful!
My icing is tacky/sticky and didn’t dry...troubleshooting tips? Tastes amazing just can’t figure out why!
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Tracy, hopefully, the glaze/icing is dry by now. It shouldn't be sticky but it's hard for me to say what could be wrong without having been in the kitchen with youl
Help! says
My dough was so soft that the cut out trees wouldn't stay in shape, also they stuck to the bench and the rolling pin, despite using heaps of flour to coat. I double checked my quantities! It is hot here though! Any ideas on what went wrong?
Chris Scheuer says
If it's really hot, that could be the problem. I would refrigerate the dough for 15-20 minutes. Normally that's not necessary but it the temp is hot, the butter may be melting as you try to roll the dough
terina meyer says
Hi did you use salted or unsalted butter? I am going to try this recipe for christmas trees.
Chris Scheuer says
I use salted butter. Enjoy!
Paula Moore says
Thank you for this frosting technique. I did my trees with the green coloring gel, but I had some stockings that I was going to do in Red, however I didn't pick up red coloring gel. What are your thoughts about using regular food coloring?
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Paula, you can definitely use red liquid food color. It might be pretty to mix a little red and a little pink if you have it. With liquid, you might have to add a few extra drops as you go along, but it should work fine. Enjoy!
Tammy says
Hi there - when baking do these cookies spread?
Chris Scheuer says
No, not if you refrigerate them before baking as indicated in the recipe. Enjoy!
Ashley says
Does the frosting harden like royal icing does? I’m wanting to try this as part of a cookie exchange but don’t want to leave a big mess. Lol
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Ashley, this icing does harden, not as hard as royal icing but you can definitely stack them in a container after they've sat out and dried well. They taste way better than cookies iced with royal icing.
Kim W says
I haven't tried them yet but I am going to make them this weekend with leaf shapes for fall, I plan on using yellow, orange and red colors and maple flavor in the icing... thank you for sharing this beautiful /easy technique!
Chris Scheuer says
Beautiful idea, Kim. I had thought of doing that myself this fall, even bought the cutters but I ran out of time. Take a pic if you can and share your cookies with us! ❤️ Chris
Andrea says
Do you have to use gel food coloring ?
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Andrea, No you could use liquid food color but you might have to add a few extra drops as you go along. Other than that, it should work fine. Enjoy!
Diane says
This recipe is easy and delicious. Even after a week, they were still very yummy and didn’t taste stale. Even after glazing, the cookies weren’t overly sweet. We had great fun decorating them in all kinds of colors for Xmas. They turned out so well and were so much fun to do that we are making these as a graduation party favor for guests to take home.
Chris Scheuer says
Thanks so much, Diane for sharing your results. I'm so happy you made this a family affair 🙂 and love that you served them for graduation!
Christina says
I made these last week and they were womderfu!. However once the icing dried it lost its sheen. They were dull. Why is that?
Chris Scheuer says
Hmmm, not sure why that happened, Christina. Mine aren't super shiny but they have a nice sheen once they're dry.
Joyce Hillenbrand says
OK I'm slow I missed this for Christmas, I think I"m gonna play with it on some hearts. But really excited to try on Easter Eggs
Chris Scheuer says
It's such a fun technique Joyce. I will actually be posting a Valentine version today!
Nicole says
Hello! Love this idea - looks so professional. I'm seeing lots of comments about the icing hardening and am wondering does the glaze harden enough to package 2 cookies in a baggy together without ruining the icing or would royal icing be better for this type of idea? Thanks so much! Can't wait to try 🙂
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Nicole, if you let the cookies sit out for 12-24 hours, the icing will definitely harden enough to package them as you described! Enjoy!
Hail says
Making these today. Cutouts in frig. now. Do these freeze well? Want to take them to a party in a week. Should I bake, freeze and frost later or can I frost now and freeze them? Will be traveling 12 hrs. so will take frozen and thaw on the trip.
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Hail,
These cookies will freeze fine. They also keep well for a week to 10 days without being frozen. If I was going to freeze them, I would freeze them un-iced and then thaw and ice. Enjoy!
Bridget says
These came out great!! But I also tried to use red food coloring, and um... the result kind of looks like my cookies are covered in menstrual blood LOL so maybe everyone avoid red.
Chris Scheuer says
Oh my! Good advice! Yes, stick with green 🙂
Sandra says
Made these and took them to a Christmas potluck.
Delicious!! Thanks for the “dipping” trick🤗
Chris Scheuer says
You're welcome Sandra, so happy you enjoyed them!
Maggy says
¡¡¡ Hola!!! Gracias por compartir. Lo voy a intentar y veamos cómo me queda. Una pregunta, qué quiere decir "4 cucharadas de mitad y mitad (o leche)"?
Gracias por la respuesta, saludos desde Guayaquil-Ecuador
Chris Scheuer says
Hola Maggy, mitad y mitad es un producto de conveniencia estadounidense que se usa a menudo en el café. Es una mezcla de media leche y media crema. Podrías usar leche entera en su lugar.
Kathleen says
I made the cookies yesterday and I love the no mixing recipe. I made one batch and thought well I need more so whipped up another. I seemed to need a lot of flour for rolling but once I got that adjusted was a breeze cutting them out. I did use a 1/4 inch disc on rolling pin by mistake! but just baked them a bit longer. One broke so I had to eat that one and cookies are really delicious - so light and tastes amazing. 5 stars for sure. So happy I used your recipe. Icing them this morning and only have the liquid green food coloring - will give that a try. Thanks Chris for this recipe. Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas!
Jacki G. says
Have you ever tried more than one color in the icing or will they mix and get muddy?
Chris Scheuer says
Yes, you can definitely use several colors. Check out these cookies: https://thecafesucrefarine.com/red-white-and-blue-glazed-shortbread-cookies/
Nirvi says
Hi there. Great recipe. Can these be frozen once glazed? Thx!
Chris Scheuer says
1Yes, just give them plenty of time to thaw
Debbie says
Hi. Where you use 1/2 and1/2 in glaze, you you have to refrigerate after they harden?
Chris Scheuer says
Hi Debbie, you just let them harden at room temperature.
Jackie says
THeyre asking AFTER they dry. Once the icing isn’t dried is it ok having dairy (whether milk or half and half ) sitting out or do they need to be stored in the fridge?
Chris Scheuer says
Thank you, Jackie, for being so kind as to clarify.
Good question! No, the small amount of half and half (or milk) is stabilized by the large amount of sugar and considered safe at room temperature for two to three days. That's why you see donuts and pastries with icing made with powdered sugar and milk sitting out at room temperature.
https://www.dispatch.com/article/20150318/LIFESTYLE/303189728
Susan says
They are so pretty! You are the expert with this technique, Chris! I makes decorating cookies so easy too. Love them you shared such a great idea.
Jenna says
What a fun idea Chris, so cute!!
Liz says
My family wouldn't allow me to give these away! So pretty!!
Dory Solomon says
Just Beautiful -- cant wait to try them!
Chris -- What brand of extracts do you prefer and/or, for this one Do you have a favorite for peppermint ?
Thanks much!
Mary Ann | The Beach House Kitchen says
So pretty and festive for the holiday season Chris! What beautiful gifts they would make too!
Tricia @ Saving Room for Dessert says
The perfect holiday cookie! Love your easy technique for decorating. I'm going to try it one of these days 🙂 Pinning!
angiesrecipes says
They look amazing and festive! That glaze is really pretty, Chris.