How To Decorate Shortbread Cookies

Y’all know I absolutely love to decorate Christmas cookies, as I do every year. But this year, I also wanted to try my hand at shortbread cookies. So I figured I would share the recipe here as well as how to decorate shortbread cookies.

And spoiler alert, it is super easy! I didn’t go all out with icing like I normally do with sugar cookies. Instead, I dipped half the shortbread cookies into melted chocolate, and then the chopped pecans.

And that’s it! It’s definitely an easy way to decorate cookies, and they taste so delicious too! No need for a piping bag either, which is always a huge plus.

This recipe is also filled with simple ingredients, most of which I bet is already in your pantry right now! So if you’re looking for some festive and yummy shortbread cookies, this recipe is for you! 

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Ingredients Needed For Shortbread Cookies:

• 1 cup unsalted butter softened
• ½ cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I use my homemade vanilla extract for this)
• 1 ¾ cup gluten free flour, plus 1/4 tsp xanthan gum if your gluten free flour does not already contain it (you can use regular all purpose flour too)
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup semi sweet chocolate, melted
• 1 cup chopped pecans

How To Make Shortbread Cookies 

First, beat the softened butter and powdered sugar together in the bowl of a stand mixer using a paddle attachment on medium speed until well combined.

Then, add in your vanilla extract. Slowly add in your gluten free flour, xanthan gum, and salt on low speed until well combined. Cover shortbread cookie dough and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Grab a baking sheet and line it with parchment paper. Y’all know I always love to use my Caraway Home baking sheets when making cookies!

After your dough has chilled, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Transfer the shortbread dough onto a flour lined surface, and using a rolling pin, roll it out until it’s about 1/2 inch thick.

Use cookie cutters to cut the dough into desired shapes. Place cut-out cookies on prepared cookie sheets and then place into preheated oven and bake cookies for about 15 minutes, depending on the size of your shapes.

Completely cool baked cookies to room temperature on a wire rack before decorating. 

How To Decorate Simple Shortbread Cookies 

Now, the easy and fun part, decorating the cookies! All I did was melt the semi sweet chocolate in a microwave safe bowl.

Then, I dipped half the cookie into the melted chocolate, and then immediately after, I dipped them into the chopped pecans as well.

I let them completely dry on wax paper before storing them, and that’s it! These Christmas shortbread cookies are literally the easiest to make! If you wanted to look at royal icing recipes, and decorate your cookies with icing instead, you definitely could do that too.

But, this is a great recipe for just keeping it super simple this holiday season! And everyone loved these decorated shortbread cookies too.

So no matter how you decorate them, you can’t go wrong because they will taste so good! Once the chocolate has dried, store decorated cookies in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

​Enjoy This Classic Shortbread Cookie Recipe! 

Well, I hope you enjoy these buttery shortbread cookies just as much as I did. They really are simple cookies to make, but taste like you spent much more time on them!

These classic cookies are just perfect for this time of year. And with the basic ingredients it calls for, you really don’t have to make a special trip to grab everything you need for them. Once you try these out, I promise you will make them year after year too!