Christmas shortbread cookies
Delicious Christmas shortbread cookies, perfect for the festive season, and really easy for kids to bake.
Make Christmas shortbread cookies together with your kids this holiday season. They’re so easy to do and are a great homemade gift for friends and family.
These Christmas shortbread cookies are a delicious buttery biscuit that you can give a festive twist to if you’ve got a Christmasy cookie cutter. We used snowflakes, but stars or Christmas trees or any other festive shape would work well too.
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How can kids help make Christmas shotbread cookies?
These really are the perfect bake for kids to do at Christmas time. The shortbread recipe is really easy to make, with only a few ingredients, which makes it perfect for even little kids and toddlers to get involved in.
The most fun part for kids to enjoy is rolling out the dough and cutting out the cookie shapes. It’s quite a forgiving biscuit dough so a great one for kids to get involved with making.
How long do shortbread cookies keep?
Shortbread can keep for a few weeks if you store it in an airtight container which is why it makes such a great homemade gift at Christmas time.
Why do you add cornflour/cornstarch to shortbread?
The cornflour (or cornstarch) adds a lovely softness to the finished shortbread cookie. If you don’t have any you could replace it with just more flour, but your shortbread won’t be quite as nice and light.
Other easy Christmas bakes for kids
If you liked making these Christmas shortbread cookies, you might enjoy some of these other traditional Christmas bakes:
Gingerbread men
Gingerbread house
Mince pies
Christmas sugar cookies
Stained glass window biscuits
Difficulty: Easy
Time: 25 minutes + 20 minutes baking
Serves: approx 12 biscuits
Ingredients
225g (1 1/3 cups) plain/all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
110g (1 cup) cornflour/cornstarch
Pinch of salt
110g (1/2 cup) caster sugar, plus extra for dusting
225g (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
how to make christmas shortbread
Pre-heat the oven to 170C / 160C fan / 340F and prepare your baking trays
Get your child to line two baking trays with baking /parchment paper.
Add the ingredients a mixing bowl
Get your toddler to weigh the flour into a small bowl then add to a large mixing bowl. Do the same with the cornflour. Add the salt, then give everything a quick mix.
Get your kids to weigh the sugar out and add it to the mixing bowl.
Finally, get your child to weigh the butter (225g) and then using a butter knife, cut into small pieces. Add it to your mixing bowl.
Form the shortbread dough
Using your finger tips, rub your mixture together until you have fine breadcrumbs. If you’ve never done this before it is literally as simple as rubbing the butter in with the flour until it breaks down into small pieces. It’s a great job for little chefs as they get the chance to get their hands a bit messy and really feel the texture change.
Once you have a fine breadcrumb, start bringing it together, kneading it lightly and squeezing it together until you have a smooth dough.
Roll out your shortbread
Roll the dough out between two pieces of baking paper until it is no more than about 1cm thick. If you find the shortbread sticking to your rolling pin, try putting a layer of shortbread on top – it should help. You can also use a layer of baking paper underneath your shortbread instead of sprinkling flour down on our worksurface. It’ll stop it sticking and is a lot less messy than flour!
Cut your shortbread into any shape you want and place them on your baking tray. We used our new Christmassy snowflake cutter but a Christmas tree or star would also make a great festive cookie. Prick the biscuits lightly with a fork.
Re-roll the scraps of dough and cut more out.
Chill the baking trays for at least 30 minutes (to stop them spreading too much during cooking). The fewer times you re-roll the dough the better. Ours started to turn a bit greasy (because the butter was melting) as we re-rolled them out loads but they still tasted nice!
Cook the christmas shortbread
Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. They’re ready when they’re just starting to turn golden brown at the edges. Leave them on the baking tray for a few minutes then pop them on a wire rack to cool.
Christmas shortbread
Ingredients
- 225 g plain flour plus extra for dusting
- 110 g cornflour
- Pinch of salt
- 225 g unsalted butter softened, plus extra for greasing
- 110 g caster sugar plus extra for dusting
Instructions
Pre-heat the oven to 170C / 160C fan and line two baking trays with baking paper
Add the ingredients a mixing bowl
- Weigh the flour into a small bowl then add to your mixing bowl. Do the same with the cornflour. Add the salt, then give everything a quick mix.
- Weigh the sugar and add it to the bowl.
- Weigh the butter and then cut into small pieces. Add to your bowl.
Form the shortbread dough
- Using your finger tips, rub your mixture together until you have fine breadcrumbs, then bring it together kneading it lightly until you have a smooth dough.
Roll out your shortbread
- Roll the dough out between two pieces of baking paper until it is about 1cm thick. We’ve never done it using baking paper before but found it definitely helped stop it sticking.
- Cut into any shape you want and place them on your baking tray. We used our new Christmassy snowflake cutter. Prick the biscuits with a fork.
- Re-roll the scraps and cut more out.
- Chill the baking trays for at least 30 minutes (to stop them spreading too much during cooking). The fewer times you re-roll the dough the better. Ours started to turn a bit greasy as we re-rolled them out loads but they still tasted nice!
Cook the shortbread
- Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. They’re ready when they’re just starting to turn golden brown at the edges. Leave them on the baking tray for a few minutes then pop them on a wire rack to cool.
Similar recipes
If you liked this Christmas shortbread you’ll love our other festive bakes for kids.
Your snowflake shortbread biscuits are adorable and would make lovely festive gifts wrapped in a cellophane bag. Commenting as BritMums Baking Round-up Editor. 🙂