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Melt in your mouth Shortbread Cookies

Bringing in the Christmas season with these brown sugar shortbread cookies. I decided to pick brown sugar over the classic icing sugar shortbread because I love the caramel-ly note that brown sugar brings. These cookies would be wonderful with pure cane sugar or coconut sugar as well!

The recipe contains cornstarch which contributes to a lighter texture in the cookie. After playing around with the quantities of butter, I finally found the perfect balance giving a flaky & crisp cookie that’s not too dry nor too greasy.

The spices I chose for the cookies are super festive. Lemon Zest paired with cardamom brings out a beautiful floral note in cardamom which by itself can be pretty intimidating. Citrus adds this beautiful fresh note and hence my second cookie flavour has orange zest along with cinnamon & clove.

For the Icing, I decided to make a quick royal icing which is traditionally made with egg whites or aquafaba (for the egg-free version). I decided to use light corn syrup instead which gives the desired consistency and shine.

I hope you all enjoy making these cookies, wishing everyone Happy Holiday’s =)

Eggless Spiced Shortbread Cookies
Print Recipe
Serves: 16-18 Cookies Cooking Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

Cookies:

All Purpose Flour(Maida): 130g / 1 cup flour

Cornstarch: 10g /4 teaspoons

Butter(Unsalted): 89g/1/3rd cup + 1 tablespoons (at room temperature)

Brown Sugar(dark) 42g/1/4th cup brown sugar(packed)

Salt: 1/4 teaspoon

Vanilla: 1/4 teaspoon

Flavorings:

2 lemons zested+ 1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder

OR

Orange Zest+ 1 teaspoon cinnamon+1/4th teaspoon clove powder

Quick Icing:

Icing Sugar: 120g/ 1 cup

Lemon Juice 2.5g/1/2 teaspoon

Corn Syrup: 10g/ 2 teaspoons

Orange Juice/ Water 12.5g/2.5 teaspoons

Instructions

1

Cookies:

2

Pre-heat the oven to 325 F/ 160 C

3

Start by sifting the flour, cornstarch & salt together and set it aside

4

Add the room temperature butter, sugar, zest & spices to another bowl and cream together using an electric hand blender or stand mixer

5

Whisk until the mixture is light and well incorporated

6

Add the sifted dry ingredients and using a wooden spoon/spatula slowly combine

7

Using your hands to rub the butter into the flour until it resembles a course mealy texture

8

Bring the crumbly dough together, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

9

Take out of the fridge(the dough will still be hard) using your hands break it apart and knead it till it softens and becomes malleable (make sure its still cold)

10

Using 2 large pieces of parchment roll out the dough evenly until it is 1/2 a centimeter thick

11

Cut out the cookies using your cookie cuter and place the cutouts on a parchment lined baking tray

12

Bring together all the scraps, re roll till 1/2 cm thick and cut more cookies

13

Keep doing this till you have no dough left

14

Place the cookies in the refrigerator for 10 minutes

15

Bake in a pre-heated oven for a total of 12 minutes (Bake for 6 minutes, turn the tray in the oven and bake for another 6 minutes)

16

Cool cookies completely before piping the icing

17

Icing:

18

Sift the icing sugar into the bowl

19

Add the lemon juice, orange juice/water, light corn syrup and using a whisk combine well

20

The mixture will get thick and glossy, make sure all the sugar is incorporated

21

Transfer to a piping bag with a super small round tip or cut a small hole at the tip of a piping bag and pipe the icing onto the cooled cookies

22

Let the icing dry off and enjoy!