Shortbread Cookies

These shortbread cookies are crispy and tasty, perfect for Christmas or New Year celebrations.

Are you ready for enjoying a wonderful and joyful Christmas with your loved ones? We start to feel  the mood to make some cookies. We do love eating cookies from Christmas, to new year as well as Chinese New Year.

Cookies are one of the most popular treats in our celebrating occasions. Before Christmas, I made these shortbread cookies. Once they’re out from oven and cooled down a bit, my hubby tried one and remarked that they’re really like the brand we got from stores.

Voila, I was so thrilled.

Then off I went to share some with a friend, some for my daughter, two slices for myself. So quickly, they’re all gone. I must make double batches at least next time for celebrating the coming occasion.

Shortbread Cookies Recipe

(Printable recipe)
By Christine’s Recipes
Course: Snack, Dessert
Cuisine: Western, Christmas
Prep time: 20 mins + chilling time
Cook time: 35 mins
Yield: 20 pieces (I used 4.8cm cookie cutter)

Ingredients:

• 120 gm butter, at room temperature
• 40 gm pure icing sugar
• 150 gm cake flour
• 25 gm rice flour
• 1/8 tsp salt

Top left : the rice flour I got from an Asian grocer.

Method:

1. Mix the cake flour, rice flour and salt well. Set aside.
2. Use an electric hand mixer to beat butter until smooth. Add sugar in three batches and beat well between each addition, until pale and fluffy.
3. Sift in the flour mixture in three batches. Use a spatula to fold and combine well. Don’t over mix the mixture. Use hands to lightly knead into a dough. Transfer onto a plastic wrap and cover with another piece. With a rolling pin, roll it out to a thickness of 1½ cm (0.6 inch). Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 1 hour or overnight.
4. Preheat oven to 150C / 300F.
5. Remove the dough from fridge and rest in room temperature for about 10 minutes until just workable. Roll it out to a thickness of 1cm (0.4 inch). With a cookie cutter, cut out some shapes. Transfer them onto a lined tray. Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes. Turn off the heat. Leave the cookies inside the oven for another 10 minutes. You might like to rotate the baking tray in order to get all cookies evenly heated in the middle of baking. (Remark: If your baking tray is not large enough, bake in batches. Refrigerate the remaining dough until needed. Repeat this step when you’re ready to make more.)

Notes：

• If the weather is too warm and the dough turns too soft, put it back in fridge and wait until it’s workable again.
• The colour of these shortbread cookies should be light yellow or light brown. Thus bake them at low oven temperature to avoid from getting brown too quickly.
• Traditionally, these cookies are in rectangle shape. You might use different cookie cutters to help cut out any shapes you like.
• I found there are two kinds of icing sugar in Australian supermarkets. One is pure icing sugar, that I used to make these shortbread cookies this time. Another one is icing sugar mixture, also known as confectioners' sugar or powdered sugar, with a small amount of cornflour added to the granulated sugar, very suitable for icing cakes or dusting these chocolate crackle cookies. If using icing sugar mixture (powdered sugar), you might like to increase the amount to adjust the sweetness.
• Rice flour is available at supermarkets. But I found the one from Asian grocers is much cheaper, so I used it (as shown in the picture above) with satisfied results.