Everyone knows it, everyone loves it - the shortbread biscuits provide the best enjoyment and are not only popular at Christmas time.But now it's cookie time, it would be a great idea to make these types of cookies while you're at it anyway. To ensure that this works wonderfully, we have put together a few tips for you, followed by a shortbread cookie recipe and a few variations that you can choose from to make dough for shortbread cookies. What is the pastry sprayed with, what should be taken into account when preparing the dough and what can it be combined with? Chocolate, jam or maybe nuts? With us you will find out the most important things to finally prepare this type of pastry in 2021!
Baking shortbread cookies recipe – general tips
Which dough?
There is a certain dough that hardly anyone can resist -the good old shortcrust pastry. However, this is slightly modified: the wet ingredients slightly outweigh the dry ones for each shortbread recipe in order to obtain a more liquid dough that can also be piped. While the butter for classic shortcrust pastry should be as cold as possible, it is best to use butter at room temperature for shortbread cookies. Not only does this make mixing easier, since you won't be able to knead this runnier dough. It also makes for a softer and fluffier dough.
The flour is only added at the very end. It is important that you do not stir for too long in this step. Try to keep the mixing time as short as possible. Otherwise, the products will be too warm, which can cause the dough to run apart. If you notice that it has become too soft, you can put it in the refrigerator for half an hour. By the way, this is also recommended for the baking tray before you form the cookies on it. Then you should end up with a shortcrust pastry that has the perfect consistency for piping. It is best to spray directly onto the baking tray lined with baking paper and cooled.
Is the dough too hard? This can definitely happen with every shortbread cookie recipe. Liquify it a little with milk or an additional egg. If the pastry comes out of the oven too hard, then you simply baked it for too long. So reduce the baking time for the next batch.
Shortbread cookies with a meat grinder or piping bag
As strange as it may sound, you can actually shape the shortbread cookies using a meat grinder. In fact, it used to be that common. Maybe you've seen this before. There are a variety of attachments for the meat grinder that can be used to quickly and easily press uniform cookies directly onto the tray.
But of course the piping bag is also suitable for shortbread cookies. After all, not everyone has a meat grinder at home and buying one specifically for baking once a year is not for everyone. The piping bag is also equipped with attachments,the so-called spouts. A star nozzle (e.g. 1.2 cm ∅) is best suited to create the grooves typical of the shortbread biscuits. Otherwise, you can pipe any shape you like - oblong, round, with a point or whatever else comes to your mind, no matter what shortbread recipe you use. This type of pastry usually has the shapes I, O, C and/or S.
Shortbread cookies without a meat grinder and piping bag
And what if you don't have a meat grinder or a piping bag at home, but you've found a delicious shortbread cookie recipe that you want to prepare spontaneously? Can you form the shortbread cookies without a piping bag? Yes, there is still an option, but then you have to do without the typical grooves. Take a freezer bag, fill it with the dough and cut off one of the two corners to make a hole. Then you can use this to press the dough onto the tray.
Vary the basic shortbread recipe
There are basic recipes for shortbread cookies, but you can of course vary them as you wish. Particularly well-known are shortbread biscuits with chocolate, where half of the biscuit is simply dipped into melted couverture. Or you can shape the dough into small nests (e.g. rings with a hole in the middle) and then make shortbread cookieswith jamby simply adding a dollop of jelly or jam to the center before or after baking. Icing is also ideal for designing the cookies. And both chocolate shortbread cookies and those with icing can then be additionally decorated with sprinkles.
Cocoa, coconut flakes, nuts and even eggnog, rum, vanilla or grated lemon or orange peel/orange flavor can also be incorporated into the dough to give the cookies a special taste. While other classic cookies are best left unchanged, you can get creative and experiment with the shortbread cookie recipe.
Shortbread cookies recipes
If you now want to bake the delicious butter shortbread biscuits, you will of course need a shortbread biscuit recipe. But we don't make it easy for you, because in addition to a basic recipe, we have also put together a few variations for you, so that you are now spoiled for choice.
Old shortbread recipe
- 220 g soft butter
- 80g powdered sugar
- 1 packet of vanilla sugar
- 1 medium egg
- 2 yolks of medium-sized eggs
- 1 pinch of salt
- 300 g wheat flour
- 15 g cornstarch
Mix the butter, powdered and vanilla sugar and salt in a bowl with a hand mixer fitted with a whisk, then add the egg and egg yolks. Mix the flour and cornstarch separately, sift and then stir into the other mixture in two portions. This shortbread cookie recipe is suitable for both a piping bag and a meat grinder. Bake the cookies in a preheated oven at 170 degrees for 15 minutes.
Shortbread cookies recipe with nuts
Regardless of whether you want to prepare shortbread cookies with hazelnuts or would rather like shortbread cookies with almonds or walnuts - you can use your favorite for the following recipe:
- 250 g Butter
- 200g sugar (you can adjust the amount to your taste)
- 10 g vanilla sugar
- 2 Owner
- 1 pinch of salt
- 500 g spelled flour, sifted
- 125 g ground nuts
- optional couverture
For this shortbread cookie recipe, mix the ingredients as quickly as possible, adding the sifted flour last. Let the finished dough cool in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Then you can shape the dough for the shortbread cookies with nuts and bake it in a preheated oven for 15 minutes at 170 degrees.
My Coconut
Coconut flavor is also very popular at Christmas time. And if you are looking for exactly that, you will meetwith a coconutShortbread cookie recipe is exactly the right choice. The coconut cookies are so easy to prepare:
- 340 g Butter
- 450g sugar
- 4 Owner
- 3 packs of vanilla sugar
- Pulp of a vanilla bean
- 200 g Coconut flakes
- 1 Tablespoon Coconut Rum Liqueur
- 400 g sifted flour
- 200 g dark chocolate coating
For this shortbread cookie recipe, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy and gradually stir in the vanilla sugar, vanilla and the eggs. Since there will be a large amount of dough, you should divide it in this step. To do this, put half of this mixture into another bowl (it is best to weigh it with the help of a scale) and from now on always add half of the specified ingredients to each of the two bowls. Firstthe coconut flakesand the alcohol.
Then concentrate on one of the bowls and work in half the specified amount of flour, wrap the dough in cling film and put it in the fridge for an hour. Repeat with the other half of the dough. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees and shape the pastry in portions (take 200 g of dough out of the fridge at a time). Bake the cookies for 12 minutes, let them cool and decorate with melted couverture. If you want, you can sprinkle coconut flakes over the still liquid chocolate.
Eggnog shortbread cookies
With eggnogMake your own shortbread cookies? Yes, it actually works and we will give you the necessary shortbread biscuit recipe. You can decorate the finished pastry with eggnog-flavored icing to intensify the flavor. We will also provide you with the necessary ingredients and quantities for this.
- 300 g Butter
- 200g powdered sugar
- 1 pack vanilla sugar
- Pulp of a vanilla bean
- 500 g Flour
- 125 g cornstarch
- 200 ml eggnog
For the icing:
- 2 untreated lemons, zest and squeezed juice
- 200g powdered sugar
- 50 ml eggnog
Mix the butter with the vanilla pulp, sugar and powdered sugar until creamy and then alternately stir in the flour, eggnog and cornstarch. You can immediately turn the finished shortbread dough into cookies and bake them in a preheated oven at 200 degrees (170 degrees fan) for 10 to 12 minutes. Once the cookies have cooled, you can dip half of them into the icing made from lemon zest, juice, powdered sugar and eggnog.
Shortbread cookies with marzipan
Marzipan is one of those treats, which shouldn't be missing at Christmas and which almost everyone enjoys. For this reason, we would of course also like to provide you with a suitable marzipan shortbread recipe.
- 200 g marzipan, crushed
- 200 g Butter
- 100 Zucker
- 1 No
- 4 drops of bitter almond flavor
- 100 g cornstarch
- 200 flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
For this shortbread cookie recipe, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy and add the chopped marzipan. Then stir in the egg and then the flour, cornstarch, baking powder (preferably sifted) and flavoring. Then shape the cookies from the finished, smooth dough using a piping bag or meat grinder and bake them on a baking tray lined with baking paper for 10 to 12 minutes in a preheated oven at 170 degrees.
This also tastes delicious:Pig ear pastries like from the bakery with only 3 ingredients
Chocolate shortbread cookies recipe
Do you really want it?nice and chocolatey? Then you can not only use couverture to decorate, but also prepare a dough with cocoa. Like that? Of course, we will also explain this to you using the following alternative for the classic shortbread biscuit recipe, which also contains a hint of speculoos aroma. What could taste better at Christmas?
- 200 g soft butter
- 120g powdered sugar
- 1 pinch of salt
- ½ tsp spice
- 1 medium egg
- 1 yolk of a medium egg
- 250 g Flour
- 30 g baking cocoa
- Couverture for decorating
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (160 degrees fan) and line trays with baking paper. For this shortbread cookie recipe, mix the butter with the powdered sugar, salt and speculoos spice and then stir in the egg and egg yolk. Mix flour and cocoa and add that to the mixture and you can shape your cookies and bake them for 10 minutes. Melt the couverture once the cookies have cooled. Now you can either dip them halfway into the chocolate or spread the flat side with the chocolate and then stick them together with another cookie, like a sandwich.
storage
Cookies usually last a long time, but you should keep them from drying out. The classic cookie tins are perfect for this. You can store the pastries like this for up to 3-4 weeks. If they become hard in the meantime, you can put a piece of apple in the can overnight.
Is all the baking too time-consuming for you? Why not try ours?Recipe ideas for no-bake cookies!
