Snowflake Shortbread Cookies
Buttery vanilla bean shortbread, cut into beautifully delicate snowflakes and dusted with powdered sugar.
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Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
- ¾ cup powdered sugar, divided
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ½ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
- ½ vanilla bean, seeds scraped (or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract)
- 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream
Instructions
- In a food processor, pulse the flour, 1/2 cup of the powdered sugar, and the salt, until combined.
- With the processor running, drop the pieces of butter in, pulsing just until distributed.
- Add the vanilla bean seeds (or vanilla extract/paste) and the cream. Process until the crumbs start to stick together.
- Dump the dough out onto the counter, and knead a few times to bring it together into a smooth, supple ball of dough with your hands.
- If you don't have a food processor, you can make this dough with a bowl and pastry cutter. You'll need to cut the butter in with the pastry cutter, then use your hands to work in the cream until you have a smooth dough. It's much easier and quicker with a food processor, though.
- Shape the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 15 minutes.
- Lightly flour a clean work surface, and dust the dough with flour as well. Roll out to between 1/8 - 1/4 inch thick. Dip a cookie cutter in flour and cut as many cookies as you can. Gather up the scraps, re-roll the dough, and continue cutting cookies until you've used up all the dough. How many cookies you get will depend on the thickness of your dough and the size of your cookie cutters.
- Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Set the cut cookies on the baking sheets, 1 1/2 inches apart. Chill in the refrigerator for about 2 hours. If you have room in your freezer, you can just freeze the pans for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350.
- Bake the chilled cookies on the center oven rack for about 7 minutes. They should still be pale in color, with no dark browning, flaky edges, and no appearance of raw wet dough in the middle. If your cookies are larger/thicker, they may need to bake a little longer.
- Cool the cookies on the pan for 5 minutes, then very gently transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely. Shortbread cookies are extremely delicate while they're warm, so you have to be gentle so as not to break them.
- Dust the cooled cookies with the remaining 1/4 cup powdered sugar.
Notes
- This recipe yields about 20-24 cookies, using a 2 1/2 inch cookie cutter.
- Be sure not to skip the step of chilling the cut cookies. This is a no-spread cookie recipe, and the cookies maintain their shape beautifully. Chilling the cut cookies helps this process.
- Store leftover shortbread cookies in an airtight container. They'll keep at room temperature for up to 2 weeks. They can also be baked in advance and frozen for 3-6 months.
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