Description
These festive Christmas Shortbread Bites are buttery, tender, and adorned with colorful sprinkles, making them perfect for holiday celebrations. The recipe uses simple ingredients like butter, powdered sugar, almond extract, and flour, and produces bite-sized cookies that are easy to share and enjoy with family and friends.
Ingredients
Scale
Shortbread Dough
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ¼ cup powdered sugar
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 3 teaspoons Christmas colored nonpareils
Instructions
- Preheat Oven and Prepare Pan: Heat the oven to 325°F. Line an 8 or 9-inch baking dish with plastic wrap or parchment paper and set aside.
- Cream Butter, Sugar, and Extract: In a bowl of an electric mixer, combine the softened butter, powdered sugar, and almond extract. Beat until creamy, scraping the bowl often, then turn off the mixer.
- Add Flour and Salt: Gently add the all-purpose flour and kosher salt a little at a time. Beat until the dough begins to form; be patient during this process.
- Incorporate Sprinkles: Stir in the Christmas colored nonpareils evenly into the dough.
- Knead and Chill Dough: Knead the dough several times until it forms a ball. Evenly press it into the prepared baking pan, then refrigerate for 20 minutes to firm up.
- Cut Dough into Squares: Remove the dough from the refrigerator and use plastic wrap or parchment paper to lift it from the pan onto a cutting board. Cut into ½-inch squares.
- Arrange on Baking Sheet: Carefully place the squares onto ungreased cookie sheets, spacing them slightly apart.
- Bake: Bake the cookies for 12 minutes or until the edges are slightly browned, keeping a close eye as they brown quickly.
Notes
- You can substitute almond extract with vanilla extract (use ½ teaspoon if using an 8x8 baking pan).
- If using salted butter, omit the additional kosher salt from the recipe.
- To make a larger batch, double all ingredient amounts and use a 9×13-inch baking dish.
- For extra festive color, sprinkle additional nonpareils on top of the dough before baking.
- Measure flour by scooping with a tablespoon and leveling with a butter knife for accuracy.
- Customize sprinkle colors to suit various holidays and celebrations.
- Try adding chocolate chips by using a chocolate chip shortbread recipe variant.
- Chilling the dough makes cutting easier but can be skipped if short on time.
- See the blog post for more tips and tricks to perfect the recipe.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 mini cookie
- Calories: 50 kcal
- Sugar: 2 g
- Sodium: 20 mg
- Fat: 3 g
- Saturated Fat: 2 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 1 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 5 g
- Fiber: 0 g
- Protein: 0.5 g
- Cholesterol: 5 mg
