Christmas Shortbread Cookies

An easy Shortbread Cookies recipe! It’s a deliciously buttery, lightly sweet, nicely crisp, yet perfectly tender cookie. They’re made with only FIVE ingredients and optional (but highly recommended) chocolate! These are such a simple, humble cookie with rich and tempting flavor. They are delicious classic on their own, but they are also very easy to customize. Variations are endless! Try with other extracts such as almond, coconut, maple, coffee, rum extract etc. Add citrus zest. Lemon or orange is delicious. Mix in finely chopped nuts or add mini chocolate chips.

Here it’s just all that butter that does the trick in this Scottish style shortbread. A lot of the best foods start out with a generous dose of butter. Not only does it bring an abundance of rich flavor, but it gives them their distinctive crumbly and slightly flaky texture. Sure you have lots of options to buy store-bought shortbread this time of year but homemade is a game changer. They are fresher, cheaper, have a better butter flavor and more tender texture, and they just have that satisfying homemade goodness to them. Plus these travel and ship well, so they are great for gifting. This is the perfect time for cookies so let’s get baking! Perfect and easy to make Christmas treat!

Ingredients:

1 cup (226g) unsalted butter, cold, diced into tiny cubes

1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar*

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups (248g) unbleached all-purpose flour

8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, chopped (optional)