Love cookies as a lot as we do? These tremendous easy, critically flaky, and candy slice-and-bake shortbread cookies are the right make-ahead addition to your vacation festivities. They’re made with all the usual substances, like butter, flour, and vanilla. In addition they have a couple of sudden additions, like cardamom and cranberries for a seasonal twist, and Everclear® grain alcohol, which makes for the flakiest, most melt-in-your-mouth shortbread you’ve ever tried.
These infants are crumbly from the beginning, so that you’ll need to make them forward of time. Maintain the dough within the fridge till you’re able to slice ‘em up and pop them within the oven. Belief me: with all these last-minute gatherings and cookie events nipping at your heels, this can be a godsend!
They’re good for entertaining, too. So you should definitely issue them into your Thanksgiving lineup or make them en masse for these upcoming vacation cookie containers—your family and friends might be eternally grateful!
Cranberry Cardamom Shortbread Cookies
Each Christmas, my grandmother would make tins and tins of her well-known shortbread cookies to offer to buddies and stash underneath the Christmas tree. They have been, by far, her most requested cookie recipe, and he or she made certain to all the time have them at household gatherings.
Reasonably than steal her thunder, I began searching for methods to make them my very own, whether or not it’s by including nuts or sprinkling in some toffee (don’t knock it ’until you’ve tried it!). However one among my favourite add-ins needs to be contemporary cranberries. They’re barely tart, which enhances the buttery sweetness of the cookie. They usually’re festive, serving to to make these feel and look like a real Christmas cookie.
And since we’re already making a twist on a basic, why not add a splash of Everclear to the combo? Not solely does the alcohol improve the cookie’s flavors, however it additionally interacts with the substances throughout baking, which makes them gentle and tremendous flaky—identical to shortbread ought to be.
Shortbread cookie substances
—10 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
—1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
—1 teaspoon Everclear® grain alcohol
—1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
—1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
—1 teaspoon cardamom
—1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
—3/4 cup contemporary cranberries, roughly chopped
—Wax paper or plastic wrap
—Parchment paper, for baking
—Hand mixer
Shortbread Cooking Directions
Step 1 | Cream butter
In a big bowl, mix the butter, vanilla extract, and Everclear. With a hand mixer, beat on low till creamed.
Step 2 | Combine dry substances
Mix the flour, confectioners’ sugar, cardamom, and salt in a separate bowl. Whisk till properly mixed.
Step 3 | Add in dry substances + cranberries
Slowly add the dry substances and beat on low. Scrape down the bowl and proceed mixing till it begins to kind a dough (watch out to not over combine!). Then gently fold within the cranberries.
Step 4 | Form dough
Spoon the dough onto a chunk of wax paper. Use your palms to kind it right into a log form, roughly 3 inches in diameter. Wrap the wax paper tightly across the dough and proceed molding it right into a uniform log form.
Step 5 | Refrigerate
Place within the fridge and chill till agency, a minimum of an hour however ideally in a single day. For those who’re making these forward of time, you possibly can retailer the dough within the fridge for as much as 5 to 7 days.
Step 6 | Slice and bake
When able to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F. Utilizing a pointy knife, reduce the dough into 1/2-inch thick slices.
Place the slices on a parchment-lined baking sheet roughly 1-inch aside. Bake for about quarter-hour, rotating the baking sheet midway by way of. The cookies ought to have slightly colour across the edges, however not a lot.
Switch to a wire cooling rack and let cool fully. Retailer the cooled cookies in an air-tight container at room temperature for as much as 1 week.
Shortbread Cookie Baking Suggestions
—Historically, shortbread cookies are pale yellow, nearly white, in colour. However I like my shortbread to be flaky and have slightly browning on the edges, so I bake them for a bit longer than standard. Simply watch out to not over-bake them!
—Piercing the cookie dough proper earlier than you pop it within the oven permits warmth to penetrate the cookie, so it bakes extra evenly. So when you like drier, flakier shortbread, you possibly can pierce every cookie 3 to 4 occasions with a toothpick or fork earlier than baking.
—This recipe makes use of unsalted butter. For those who solely have salted butter, both add much less salt or go away it out totally.
—For those who can’t discover contemporary cranberries, be at liberty to make use of frozen cranberries. Simply thaw them underneath cool working water and dry them properly earlier than chopping and including to the cookie dough.
This put up was created in partnership with Everclear®. All ideas and opinions are my very own. You will discover Everclear at your native retailer or on-line through Cask Cartel, Caskers, or Drizly. You may as well search Everclear’s product locator web page on-line!
