As promised, I’m sharing the very simple shortbread recipe from our son’s baptism. I used a cross-shaped cookie cutter for these, but like many shortbread recipes, the dough can be cut into any shape. The crosses would also work really well for Easter, and with Christmas coming up, these shortbread sweets would make the perfect snack for Santa!

Simple Shortbread 

Ingredients

2 cups butter (the whole brick), softened

¾ cup white sugar

4 cups white flour

1 tsp icing sugar (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
2. Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper.
3. Cream butter and sugar using a spoon or mixer.
4. Add flour to your creamed mixture and combine with hands until the ingredients form dough.
5. Using a floured rolling pin, roll out your dough onto a floured surface. Roll to approximately 1/4inches thickness.
6. Cut out shapes using a floured cookie cutter and place on baking sheets. You may need to re-roll your dough a few times to fit the shapes.
7. Chill cut cookies for 10 minutes (this helps the cookies keep their shape).
8. Bake until golden brown.
9. Let cool for about 10 minutes, then sift icing sugar over warm cookies.

*Tip:  Be sure to cream the butter and sugar before adding your flour, this makes kneading the dough a lot easier. I can say that I’ve learned this from experience because the first time I made these I missed that step and it made for some serious dough wrestling. Let’s just say I won’t ever need to lift a weight again if I keep skipping this step.