Mexican Cinnamon Sugar Shortbread

Horizontal closeup photo of Mexican Sugar Cinnamon Shortbread on a red and white striped napkin.

5 from 3 votes

Crisp, buttery and super delish, this Mexican Cinnamon Sugar Shortbread is fabulous for snacking or dessert. It also pairs wonderfully with ice cream or flan and comes together with just one bowl and no mixer!

Prep Time30

Cook Time20

Chilling time1

Total Time1 50

Course: Cookies, Dessert, Gifts from the Kitchen, Snacks

Cuisine: American, Mexican

Keyword: Mexican Cinnamon Sugar Shortbread

Servings: cookies

Calories: 91kcal

Author: Chris Scheuer

Ingredients

For the prep:

3 tablespoon granulated or cane sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon optional

For the dough

1 cup very soft butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
2 ½ cups all purpose flour

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

For the prep:

Line two sheet pans with parchment paper. Combine the 3 tablespoons of sugar and the ½ teaspoon of cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside.

For the dough:

Place the butter in a medium-sized bowl and stir with a spatula or wooden spoon until nice and fluffy, about 30 seconds. Add the powdered sugar and stir again until well combined.
Add the egg and vanilla extract and stir for another 30-45 seconds until fluffy and well combined.
Add the cinnamon and salt and stir to combine then add the flour and stir until combined and there is no dry flour. The mixture will seem crumbly at first. Just keep stirring until it starts to come together.
Sprinkle a work surface with flour. Have some extra flour on the side in a small cup.
Turn the dough over several times to coat with the flour then divide the dough in two and cover one with a piece of plastic wrap.
Keep the surface and your rolling pin lightly dusted with flour at all times, roll out the dough to the desired thickness. I like mine about a ¼ thick but you can go thinner or thicker it’s just important to keep the surface underneath the dough lightly floured as you roll.
Use a cutter of your choice to cut out the cookies, transferring them to the prepared sheet pans as you go.
Place the sheet pans in the refrigerator to chill for at least an hour and up to 24 hours. If you don’t have a lot of room in your refrigerator, you can put all the cookies on one pan to chill, then divide them up on the two pans before baking.

To bake:

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350˚F.
Remove the cookies from the refrigerator and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and flatten each cookie with a flat metal spatula (optional) then sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar mixture.
Return to the oven and bake for another 5-10 minutes until golden brown. Thinner cookies will take less time, thicker cookies will take more.
Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely before enjoying or storing in an airtight storage container.
If you remove the cookies from the oven and and let them cool but find they aren’t as crisp as you would like you can return them to the oven for an additional few minutes.

Notes

See Café Tips above in the post for more detailed instructions and tips to ensure success.

If you prefer to use Metric measurements there is a button in each of our recipes, right above the word “Instructions”. Just click that button to toggle to grams, milliliters, etc. If you ever come across one of our recipes that doesn’t have the Metric conversion (some of the older recipes may not), feel free to leave a comment and I will add it.

Nutrition