These brown sugar shortbread cookies are buttery and mildly sweet, with a subtle hint of warm spices. Use a fluted pastry cutter for a pretty presentation on these simple cookies, and finish them with a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar.
You might also love these high altitude tested recipes for classic almond shortbread cookies, hazelnut shortbread cookies, and stamped chocolate shortbread cookies.
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Ingredients
- All Purpose Flour.
- Sugar. You’ll need light brown sugar for the cookie dough, as well as granulated sugar to sprinkle on top of the cookies.
- Spices. Salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and vanilla extract. The spices are subtle, really just a whisper of spices. If you want more spice, feel free to double the amounts.
- Unsalted Butter.
- Milk.
Instructions
Make the Dough
- In a food processor, pulse the flour, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.
- With the processor running, drop the cold butter down the chute, one piece at a time.
- Add the vanilla and the milk, and process until the crumbs come together into a dough.
- Dump the dough crumbs out onto a clean work surface and gather the dough together with your hands, kneading it into a smooth ball.
- Wrap the dough with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Roll and Cut the Cookies
- On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough to an even thickness, between 1/8-1/4 inch thick.
- Use a straight-edge ruler and a fluted rolling pastry wheel cutter to cut the dough into rectangles measuring approximately 1 1/2 x 2 3/4 inches. Gather up the scraps, roll them out again, and continue to cut as many cookies as you can. You should be able to cut about 2 dozen cookies.
- Place the cut cookies one inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet. Prick the cookies several times with the tines of a fork, then sprinkle the top of the cookies with the granulated sugar.
- Set the pan in the refrigerator to chill the cookies for 15 minutes, while you preheat the oven.
Bake the Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven.
- Bake the cookies for about 14 minutes. If you carefully turn one of the cookies over, the bottom side should be baked through, with no appearance of raw or wet dough.
- Cool on the baking sheet for several minutes, then gently transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!
Frequently Asked Questions
Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3-6 months.
If you don’t have a food processor, you can make the dough by hand using a pastry cutter to cut the cold butter into the dry ingredients. Then use your hands to work the liquid into the dough, kneading it together until it forms a smooth ball.
When I developed this recipe, I thought these cookies might taste similar to a biscoff cookie, but they really don’t have the same flavor as biscoff cookies (also known as “airplane cookies”). With their rectangular shape, though, they are reminiscent of biscoff.
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Brown Sugar Shortbread Cookies
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Food Processor or Pastry Cutter
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- ½ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg
- ⅛ tsp ground cloves
- ½ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp cold milk
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar or cinnamon sugar
Instructions
Make the Dough
- In a food processor, pulse the flour, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.
- With the processor running, drop the cold butter down the chute, one piece at a time.
- Add the vanilla and the milk, and process until the crumbs come together into a dough.
- Dump the dough crumbs out onto a clean work surface and gather the dough together with your hands, kneading it into a smooth ball.
- Wrap the dough with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Roll and Cut the Cookies
- On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough to an even thickness, between 1/8-1/4 inch thick.
- Use a straight-edge ruler and a fluted rolling pastry wheel cutter to cut the dough into rectangles measuring approximately 1 1/2 x 2 3/4 inches. Gather up the scraps, roll them out again, and continue to cut as many cookies as you can. You should be able to cut about 2 dozen cookies.
- Place the cut cookies one inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet. Prick the cookies several times with the tines of a fork, then sprinkle the top of the cookies with the granulated sugar.
- Set the pan in the refrigerator to chill the cookies for 15 minutes, while you preheat the oven.
Bake the Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven.
- Bake the cookies for about 14 minutes. If you carefully turn one of the cookies over, the bottom side should be baked through, with no appearance of raw or wet dough.
- Cool on the baking sheet for several minutes, then gently transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
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