These cinnamon shortbread cookies are buttery, melt in your mouth, shortbread cookies generously rolled in a layer of cinnamon sugar and will dazzle at your next holiday celebration! These cookies are delicate, buttery, crisp, and perfect for Christmas celebrations! They are fun to make and delicious to eat. They require only 6 ingredients and will be ready in just 10 minutes. If you’re looking to bake something festive in a short span of time, this is the recipe you need. These Christmas cookies are perfect for almost any occasion to celebrate with friends, family and loved ones!
Ingredients you’ll need for cinnamon shortbread cookies:
- Unsalted Butter: Since butter is a main flavor here, I would really recommend springing for a higher-quality brand. It is very important to have your butter at room temperature. You can ensure this by lightly pressing your finger on the block of butter. It should slightly leave an imprint. I also prefer to use unsalted butter because salted butters have varying amounts of salt content in them and it is always a good idea to add it on your own and avoid your bakes from being too salty.
- Granulated Sugar: Sugar acts as a binding agent to your muffins along with adding sweetness. You can use either granulated sugar, powdered sugar or caster sugar to make these cookies. Make sure you only use superfine sugar to get that melt in your mouth texture.
- Maple Syrup: You must use a high quality pure maple syrup in your recipes. This helps to add a rich flavor to your baked goods especially when they contain cinnamon. This enhances the flavour of all ingredients and you should never leave it out. You can alternatively swap it with vanilla extract. Pure vanilla extracts are typically dark brown in color.
- All purpose flour: I highly recommend weighing all your ingredients using a kitchen scale for accurate recipe results. If you’re using cups, don’t scoop your cup into the flour. Spoon the flour into your cup and level it off with the back of a knife. You can also use a mix of all purpose and hazelnut flour alternatively.
- Kosher Salt: Adding a pinch of salt helps to balance out the flavours in the cookies. I have added sea salt for a little extra flavour however you can use normal iodised salt too.
- Ground Cinnamon: These cinnamon sugar star shaped cookies have a teaspoon ground cinnamon in the dough and you’ll also need some to make some cinnamon sugar in a small bowl to roll the cookies in before baking. You can also roll them in brown sugar alternatively.
FAQ
1. Mix together all the dry ingredients and wet ingredients to make the shortbread linzer cookie dough using a hand mixer, stand mixer or a food processor.
2. Chill it in the fridge for at least one hour or up to a few days.
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out one disk of dough to ⅛” in thickness. Use a star shaped cookie cutter to cut star shaped cookies from the rolled dough.
4. Place all cutout cookie dough on baking sheets and roll them in cinnamon sugar mixture. Place the scrap cookie dough back in the fridge for about 15 minutes before re-rolling.
5. Bake the cutout cookies at 350 degrees F for about 10 minutes. Bake the tiny rounds for about 8 minutes. Allow cookies to cool completely on the baking sheet.
6. Repeat with the remaining cookie dough.
Since shortbread cookies are meant to be crisp, store them at room temperature covered loosely with aluminum foil.
You can double or half this recipe as per your needs. However I have to warn you, these cookies are really so addictive that you’ll finish a batch in no time.
Tips to make the best cinnamon sugar star cookies:
- Do not over mix the dough. Because we do not want to incorporate much air into the dough, be sure to mix the butter and sugars together on low speed. Mixing at a higher speed for too long will aerate the dough and leave you with cookies that spread too much in the oven.
- Roll the dough before chilling. For best results I like to roll the dough as soon as it’s ready. Roll the dough to 3/8 inch thick between two pieces of parchment paper and then pop it in the freezer for at least 15 minutes before cutting the shapes. Once the shapes are cut, place the cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet and return them to the freezer for 10 minutes before baking them in a preheated oven. The extra chill time will help to prevent any spreading in the oven.
- Do not over bake. For those soft, buttery, melt in your mouth cookies be sure to pull them from the oven when the edges are set and lightly golden brown and the center of the cookie is puffed and pale. The middle of the cookies might seem slightly under baked but the residual heat from the pan will continue to bake the cookies once they are removed from the oven.
- Cool the cookies completely. Be sure to let the cookies cool for 10 minutes on the cookie sheets once removed from the oven. Then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS FROM THIS SHORTBREAD COOKIE RECIPE?
All of the recipes on the blog are thoroughly tested multiple times and carefully designed so that anyone can reproduce these delicious baked good in their own kitchen and enjoy them to the fullest. The only way to make this possible is when anyone can exactly replicate the measurements and temperatures.
- In order to standardise the way ingredients are measured, I highly recommend that you weigh them in grams. Volume measurements are nearly not as accurate and have a lot of scope for errors. To precisely be able to replicate the recipes, all you will need is a kitchen scale!
- Every oven heats up differently. Your oven might be over heating or under heating by around 50 degrees or more and you might not even know. In order to ensure that you are baking at the right temperatures, I highly recommend investing in an oven thermometer!
If you would still like to bake using volume measurements, I mentioned those below. However, I primarily test my recipes in grams and cannot promise the best results if you do so. Trust me, once you’ll start using these tools you’d never want to go back!
I hope you’ll enjoy these Cinnamon Sugar Star Cookies this Christmas and don’t forget to bookmark this recipe for the holidays. These scrumptious cookies are perfect to celebrate any occasion with friends and family!
Happy baking! x
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Cinnamon Shortbread Cookies
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 18–20 cookies 1x
Description
These cinnamon shortbread cookies are buttery, melt in your mouth, shortbread cookies generously rolled in a layer of cinnamon sugar and will dazzle at your next holiday celebration! These cookies are delicate, buttery, crisp, and perfect for Christmas celebrations!
Ingredients
- 218g (1¾ cups) all purpose flour, spooned and levelled
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 170g (¾ cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 100g (½ cup) granulated or caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure maple syrup or vanilla extract
- Cinnamon sugar ( 50g – ¼ cup granulated or caster sugar + 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350° F and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, ground cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream the butter and granulated sugar until the mixture is fluffy and pale yellow. Add the maple syrup. Then, add the flour a cup at a time, until you have a crumbly dough that’s starting to come together.
- Turn the dough onto a pastry or cutting board. Press the dough together with clean hands until you have a smooth ball of dough. Cut the dough into two, and flatten each portion into a 1/2” disc. Wrap with plastic wrap, and freeze for about 15 minutes or refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll each disc of dough until it’s 1/4” thick. Cut out an even number of 3” stars with a cookie cutter. Use a small cookie cutter to cut out a shape from half of the cookies.
- Roll the cookies in cinnamon sugar generously and place the cookies 1” apart on the prepared sheets.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the bottoms and edges are lightly browned. Let cool for about 5 minutes on the pan, and then move the cookies to a wire rack to completely cool.
- Store cookies in an airtight container for up to a week.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Category: Star Cookies, Christmas Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: cinnamon shortbread cookies, cinnamon star cookies, shortbread cinnamon cookies
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