Christmas Shortbread Cookie Recipes

Here's Mom's favorite Christmas shortbread cookie recipes, the ones she used year after year for baking tins chock full of delicious shortbread cookies for the Holidays. They are quick and easy to make and oh, so buttery delicious.

Mom's Christmas Shortbread Cookie Recipes

Mom's Recipe Scrapbooks (1920s)

Christmas Shortbread Cookies

Cream 1 cup butter, beat well (or 1/2 butter and 1/2 shortening). Add 1/2 cup fruit sugar and 2 cups sifted flour, plus a few drops vanilla.

Knead together well and roll out on a board. Make in rounds and prick with fork. Bake at 250° F. for about 25 minutes.

Or roll out and cut and decorate as cookies, then bake at 325° F. till done.

Scottish Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients: 1/2 cup brown or fruit sugar or icing sugar, 1 cup butter, 2 cups flour.

Cream the butter, add the sugar gradually and cream together thoroughly. Add flour slowly. When a stiff dough is formed, turn out on a floured board.

Gradually knead in flour till the dough begins to crack. Roll out 1/4 inch thick, cut in fancy shapes and bake in a slow oven (300°F) until slightly browned.

Decorated Shortbread Cookies

1 cup icing sugar, 2 cups butter, 4 cups flour. Mix well, knead until the dough begins to crack, shape into a round cake about 1/2 inch thick, crimping the edge like a pie crust.

Or, roll out and cut like cookies. Bake on non-greased tins in a slow oven (300°F) until delicately browned. Allow the shortbread to cool on the baking tin.

Make Hanging Shortbread Cookies

Now here's a creative shortbread cookie idea you might want to try for Christmas. Use a special cookie cutter to make hanging shortbread cookies that rest on the rim of a coffee mug.

Shortbread dunked in coffee tastes amazing at Christmas time. And not only is cookie dunking fun, it's so homey and comforting.

Hanging cookie cutters are not easy to find in stores, but you can easily make your own with the help of a common pair of pliers.

Carefully bend the branch and trunk of a typical metal Christmas tree cutter upwards to fashion the notch, so the baked cookie fits over the mug's rim like the example seen in the photo.

And here's another clever idea. Instead of buying hanging cutters, choose one of the Christmas shortbread cookie recipes and after rolling the dough and cutting out your cookies, simply use a sharp knife to carefully cut suitable notches in the cookies BEFORE baking them in the oven.

This notch trick can be done with almost any cookie shape. Just be sure to cut a large enough notch to fit the mug, since the dough will expand while baking.