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Whipped Shortbread Cookies are light and delicious cookies that are quick and easy to prepare. Top them with sprinkles or maraschino cherries – or any favorite cookie topping.
Make room on the cookie tray for these delicious, sweet Whipped Shortbread Cookies!
These easy cookies have a wonderfully-tender texture and a light, sweet taste that goes nicely with your favorite holiday sprinkles or as a base for brightly-colored maraschino cherries.
What makes Whipped Shortbread Cookies so tender?
These sweet, tender, egg-free cookies have a very unique texture thanks to the addition of both confectioner’s sugar and corn starch which are added to whipped butter and flour.
We flavored our Whipped Shortbread Cookies with almond extract – but you could swap in vanilla if you prefer. (Or any other flavored extract you’d like.)
Before baking, we pressed maraschino cherries into the center of half of our cookies. (Be sure to drain the cherries first, so the red juice doesn’t stain the cookies!) Then, we decorated the other half with holiday-colored sprinkles.
Bake your cookies until lightly golden on the bottom and firm in the center.
Your Whipped Shortbread Cookies will be very soft and tender right out of the oven – so allow them to rest on your baking sheet until cooled. Once they’ve cooled off a bit, these cookies will still be tender, but firm enough to transfer to a serving tray.
I bet Santa would love seeing a plate of these sweet Whipped Shortbread Cookies waiting for him on Christmas Eve, served with a cold glass of milk! 🙂
Recipe adapted from Taste of Home.
You may enjoy these other cookie recipes:
- 4-Ingredient Shortbread Cookies
- Orange Ricotta Cookies
- Christmas Crunchies
- Italian Anisette Cookies
- Christmas Rocks
We love seeing what you made! Tag us on Instagram at @afamilyfeast or hashtag #afamilyfeast so we can see your creations!
Whipped Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
Small jar of maraschino cherries, well drained
1 pound butter, softened (4 sticks)
1 cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons almond extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup corn starch
Sprinkles for decorating
Instructions
Place cherries in a strainer over a bowl and drain well. Once drained, lay out some paper towels and add the drained cherries and pat dry. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle, cream butter until pale and creamy, about three minutes.
With mixer running on low, slowly add the sifted confectioner’s sugar. Scrape and mix again.
Add extract and again mix.
Sift flour and corn starch together and slowly add with mixer running on low.
Scrape and mix one last time.
Use a #40 scoop (1 ½ tablespoons) and scoop out dough onto ungreased cookie sheets, 12 per pan (3X4). If you are using a kitchen scale, they will be just shy of one ounce each. They spread some so no more than 12 per pan.
Press the top down with your fingers to about a half inch thick and press a cherry in the center of half the cookies and/or sprinkle holiday sprinkles, pressing into the tops. You can use one or the other or half and half as we did.
Bake one pan at a time in center of oven for 22 minutes. I set my timer for 15 then moved the pan up a rack for the final 7 minutes. The results were lightly browned on the bottom and firm in center when lightly pressed.
Remove from the oven and let sit for a few minutes on the pan then with a small thin spatula, gently move to a cooling rack. Do not try and pick them up with your hands while warm, they are very delicate and will break while warm. Once they cool completely, they are still delicate but firm to hold.
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I made these for Christmas- they were terrific! I have been making shortbread cookies for years. I love them but it makes for a lot of stress and cursing! The dough is “crumbly” and it takes a lot of time and patience to work it. When all is done they are great. But these were easy an worked to perfection. Thank you. I threw my other recipe out!!!
Thanks Patti, glad they worked out.
I followed this recipe exactly as directed and the cookies all flattened into one giant cookie in the pan! It was very disappointing
★
Sorry to hear you had problems with the recipe Alegna – I can understand your disappointment. Sometimes cookies spread too much when the oven temperature is too hot, so that might be something to check. Otherwise, we’re wondering if there was a mis-measurement of the ingredients or if you used granulated sugar instead of confectioner’s (powdered) sugar?