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Delicious Christmas shortbread cookies, super-easy to prepare and slightly crispy, with a delicious cinnamon taste. These little dry cookies with their autumnal flavours will delight the taste buds of young and old alike!
💙 Why you'll love them
- Super simple: they're really child's play to make. Just mix the ingredients, roll out the dough, make shapes and bake them. Nothing too complicated, as you can see!
- Quick to prepare, they're ready in under 30 minutes.
- Just 4 ingredients, as easy to find as they are to use.
🧈 Ingredients
You'll need the following ingredients to make these delicious cinnamon shortbread cookies. You can find the quantities in the recipe card below.
- Brown sugar, to give the shortbread a slightly caramelized taste.
- Butter: I recommend good-quality soft butter, with a minimum fat content of 82%. Use it soft, but certainly not melted.
- All-purpose flour.
- Ground cinnamon, to flavour these delicious little cookies.
✨How to make these cinnamon shortbread cookies?
Recipe details and quantities are in the recipe card below.
- Place the brown sugar and very soft (but not melted) butter in a large bowl.
- Mix well until creamy.
- Add the flour and cinnamon.
- Mix with your hands until you get a ball. This may take 5-6 minutes.
- Lightly flour your work surface and use a rolling pin (also well-floured) to roll out the dough.
- Once the dough is rolled out (it should be about 2 cm high), use cookie cutters to make your shapes.
- Form a ball with the remaining dough, flour your work surface and rolling pin again, and roll out the dough into shortbread shapes. Repeat until you've used up all the dough.
- Line an oven tray with aluminum foil. Lightly butter the foil, carefully place the shortbread biscuits, spacing them slightly apart, and sprinkle with a tablespoon of brown sugar and another of cinnamon. Place in the oven.
✅ Dairy-free version
To make this recipe dairy-free, replace the butter with vegetable margarine.
👩🏻🍳Chef's Tips
As European, I'm used to working in grams and milliliters. For savory dishes, the American measuring system can work just perfectly. But for anything sweet, I really recommend using a digital scale, which is much more precise. That way, you'll be sure to succeed with your recipes.
Shaping the shortbread
- Flour your work surface and rolling pin before rolling out the dough: as there is no egg in this recipe, it is more crumbly. Flouring your rolling pin will help you handle and work the dough better.
- Patience: the dough takes a little time to form a good round ball, as the butter melts as you knead it with your hands.
- If the dough is too crumbly, add a little more softened butter.
- Use cookie cutters: I use these. If you don't have one, you can simply cut out squares with a knife.
Baking the shortbread
- Lightly butter your parchment paper before placing your shortbread in the oven. It'll be much easier to peel them off the foil when they come out of the oven.
- Space out your shortbread, as it will swell up a little during baking. It would be a shame to spoil their pretty shapes!
- Sprinkle with a little brown sugar and cinnamon before baking, to add an even crispier texture and a slightly caramelized edge to the shortbread.
- Don't overcook them: they take on their final consistency once they've cooled, so don't panic if you find them a little soft when they come out of the oven.
💡Frequently Asked Questions
No, there's no need.
First of all: let them cool completely, otherwise your decoration will melt.
You can then decorate them with white or dark chocolate (edible decoration pens are also available).
And for something even prettier, you can place dried flowers, crushed pistachios, hazelnut chips, etc. on the still-moist melted chocolate…
As a snack, you can accompany them with a nice hot chocolate or a delicious Moon Milk for a change.
❄️ Storage / freezing
To store, place them in a tin (non-hermetic metal, a glass container with a lid, or a plastic storage tin) when completely cold, on a layer of kitchen paper. Put paper towels between each layer of shortbread. They'll keep for about a week.
Grandma's little trick: you can also add a few squares of sugar to absorb the moisture, or a few grains of rice, to make your shortbread last longer.
You can also freeze them and enjoy them for up to 4 months. Spread them out on a plate and freeze for 2 hours. You can then put them in a freezer bag, on which you'll write the date and the name of the recipe.
😋 Other gems for a snack
If you make those cinnamon shortbreads, it would be so nice to leave me a comment and rate the recipe ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. You can also tag me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook or Tik Tok, or even send me a photo, I love seeing my little dishes in your homes!
📖 Recette
Cinnamon shortbread cookies
Ingredients
For the dough
- ⅓ cup brown sugar (70g)
- ½ + ⅛ cups unsalted butter soft (130g)
- 1 + ½ cups all-purpose flour (190g)
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon ground (8g)
To add before cooking
- 1 large tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 large tablespoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 356°F/180°C in natural convection/static heat mode. Place the brown sugar and very soft (but not melted) butter in a large bowl. Mix well until creamy.
- Add the flour and cinnamon, then mix again with your hands until you get a ball (this may take 5-6 minutes).
- Lightly flour your work surface and use a rolling pin (also well floured) to roll out the dough.
- Once the dough is rolled out (it should be about 0,8 inch high), use cookie cutters to make your shapes. If you don't have one, simply cut squares with a knife.
- Re-flour your work surface and rolling pin, then roll out the dough again to make the shortbread shapes. Repeat until you've used up all the dough.
- Line an oven tray with aluminum foil. Lightly butter the foil, carefully place the shortbread, spacing them slightly apart, and sprinkle with a tablespoon of brown sugar and another of cinnamon.
- Bake for 18 minutes. Leave to cool before enjoying.
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