Pine trees, butter, sugar, warm ovens... there's nothing better than holiday cookies. These are fast becoming our favorites, so we just had to share them!
Shortbread Holiday Stars:
2/3 cup of butter (softened) plus one tablespoon
1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar
1 1/2 cup of sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cream the softened butter and then add sugar slowly until light and fluffy. Add the other ingredients gradually making sure not to over mix. Once the batter/dough is a pea consistency, pour it out onto a large piece of parchment paper and use the paper to help you form it into a ball. Kneed the dough several times to make it more pliable.
Once the dough has come together roll it out to about 1/8" thickness. We like to do this on parchment paper because it lessens the amount of flour needed for rolling and so makes the cookies that much more full of buttery goodness! After the dough is rolled out cut out your shapes and transfer them to a parchment lined baking pan. At this point you can cut out the center holes in half of the cookies (for the tops) and bake them at 325 for 10-12 minutes or until a slight golden brown appears on the edge.
Cool slightly and then spread your favorite jams on the bottom cookies and sandwich them with the cookie tops. You could make a perfect sandwich with both cookies, or you could stagger them slightly like we did to create more shapes. We even made triple decker cookies for the ultimate holiday stars!
Let stand about an hour or so for the jam to begin to set before serving.
And just in case you feel like baking lots of different cookies... we love this collection of holiday treats from the New York Times
Happy Baking!
*Last time in Recipes: Ginger Leaves
