These whipped shortbread cookies are a soft, easy, and delicious holiday dessert perfect for adding to your Christmas baking list! With just a few classic baking ingredients, you will have a cookie that is so simple and addicting! Add some festive sprinkles or your favorite candy on top for a wonderful holiday treat!
Easy Whipped Shortbread Cookies
Whipped shortbread cookies are a fun holiday cookie that you can enjoy making with the kids too! They will love to add the forked mark on these cookies, as well as the holiday sprinkles!
Whip up a batch of these tasty cookies for your next neighborhood cookie swap party. They're sure to be a hit with everyone!
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If baking gets you in the Christmas spirit, be sure to check out all of my holiday baking recipes! There are cookies, cakes, pies, fudge, candy, and so much more to try!
🥘 Whipped Shortbread Cookies Ingredients
This recipe consists of mostly pantry staple baking ingredients! However, you may need to make a trip to the grocery store for some festive sprinkles.
- Butter - 1 ½ cups of butter (3 sticks of butter is equivalent to 1 ½ cups, at room temperature).
- Confectioners Sugar - ¾ cup of confectioners sugar.
- Vanilla Extract - 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.
- All-Purpose Flour - 2 ¼ cups of all-purpose flour
- Cornstarch - ¾ cup of cornstarch.
- Sprinkles - ¼ cup of holiday red, white, and green sprinkles (optional).
*Be sure to see the free printable recipe card below for ingredients, exact amounts & instructions with tips!*
🔪 How To Make Whipped Shortbread Cookies
These whipped shortbread cookies are easier than you think, most of the time is spent just chilling the dough! To get started, you will need a stand mixer (or electric mixer), baking sheet, mixing bowl, and some measuring cups.
1 full batch of these soft cookies will yield around 36 cookies. Keep a dozen for yourself to enjoy and gift the others to family and friends for the holidays!
- Cream the butter. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the 1 ½ cups of butter for 3-4 minutes. Add 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract or optional flavors at this time if desired, and mix for another minute.
- Add ingredients. Add 2 ¼ cups of sifted all-purpose flour, ¾ cup of confectioners sugar, and ¾ cup of cornstarch. Mix on medium-high speed, (level 8 on KitchenAid stand mixer) until thoroughly blended.
- Chill cookie dough. Chill dough in the refrigerator for 2 hours or until the dough is firm. You may also speed up this process and freeze the dough until it"s firm.
- Roll cookies. Roll the dough into 36 cookie dough balls. Then press the top of the cookies with a fork dipped in cornstarch. Top cookies with sprinkles, if desired.¼ cup sprinkles
- Bake. Preheat your oven to 325°F (162°C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place cookies on the baking sheet and chill them in the freezer until the oven is completely preheated. Bake cookies for 12 minutes, or until the tops have set.
- Cool and serve. Allow cookies to completely cool on a wire cooling wrack and serve.
Whipped shortbread cookies make a fantastic addition to your holiday cookie spread! They are especially tasty when paired with a jar of homemade crockpot apple cider or gingerbread eggnog! Enjoy!
💭 Angela's Tips & Recipe Notes
- You may add a Hershey's kiss in the center if you want the cookies to be sweeter.
- You can use a combination of vanilla extract and almond extract (1 ½ teaspoons vanilla with ½ teaspoon of almond extract) or use another flavor. Both lemon extract and orange extract are great flavors.
- I would advise to not substitute butter for margarine or your cookies may become tough or fold.
- Bake one sheet at a time on the middle rack. If you try to bake one sheet at the top and one sheet on the bottom rack, your cookies will have different textures.
🥡 Storing
Place your cookies in an airtight container and store them at room temperature for up to 7 days. Put your cookies in the fridge in an airtight container or plastic resealable bag to store them for up to 2 weeks.
You may freeze baked cookies in a freezer-safe container for up to 2 months.
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❓ Recipe FAQs
Cornstarch helps create a crispy and melt-in-your-mouth texture in cookies! It also prevents cookies from becoming too crumbly and keeps the cookies from spreading.
Butter! Margarine causes cookies to spread out a lot more than butter and also makes cookies less crispy. Margarine also changes the flavor of cookies and it's a lot stickier making it hard to work with when forming the dough.
If your shortbread cookies are too dry, it could be a number of things! It may be due to your butter being too cold, or that you are not using enough butter. Secondly, it may be due to over-mixing your cookie dough. Also, if you have used too many dry ingredients, like more flour than you are supposed to.
🍪 More Delicious Cookie Recipes
- Chocolate Peppermint Crinkle Cookies - These gooey dark chocolate cookies feature peppermint extract for that perfect hint of winter mint!
- Cowboy Cookies - If you are a fan of coconut, chocolate, and pecans, these cowboy cookies are a must-have!
- Polar Bear Paw Print Cookies - Adorable and tasty treats that are both kid and adult approved!
- Chocolate Blossom Cookies - A unique twist to the original peanut butter blossom, a dark chocolate cookie topped with a Hershey's kiss!
- No-Bake Pumpkin Cookies - These no-bake cookies are so easy to whip up when you are wanting a treat full of flavors!
- Gumdrop Cookies - This festive cookie is easy to make and every bite has a burst of delicious fruit flavor!
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📖 Recipe Card
Whipped Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups butter (3 sticks of butter is equivalent to 1 ½ cups, at room temperature)
- ¾ cup confectioners sugar
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup cornstarch
- ¼ cup sprinkles (optional)
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, cream butter and sugar for 3-4 minutes. Add vanilla extract or optional flavors at this time if desired, and mix for another minute.
- Add in sifted all-purpose flour, confectioners sugar, and cornstarch. Mix on medium-high speed, (level 8 on Kitchenaid stand mixer) until thoroughly blended.
- Chill dough in the refrigerator for 2 hours or until the dough is firm. You may also speed up this process and freeze the dough until it"s firm.
- Roll the dough into 36 cookie dough balls. Then press the top of the cookies with a fork dipped in cornstarch. Top cookies with sprinkles, if desired.
- Preheat your oven to 325°F (162°C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place cookies on the baking sheet and chill them in the freezer until the oven is completely preheated. Bake cookies for 12 minutes, or until the tops have set.
- Allow cookies to completely cool on a wire cooling wrack and serve.
Notes
- You may add a Hershey's kiss in the center if you want the cookies to be sweeter.
- You can use a combination of vanilla extract and almond extract (1 ½ teaspoons vanilla with ½ teaspoon of almond extract) or use another flavor. Both lemon extract and orange extract are great flavors.
- I would advise to not substitute butter for margarine or your cookies may become tough or fold.
- Bake one sheet at a time on the middle rack. If you try to bake one sheet at the top and one sheet on the bottom rack, your cookies will have different textures.
- To store: Place your cookies in an airtight container and store them at room temperature for 7 days. Put your cookies in the fridge in an airtight container or plastic resealable bag for up to 2 weeks. Place them on the counter and allow the cookies to reach room temperature before servings. You may freeze baked cookies in a freezer-safe container for up to 2 months.
Anonymous says
Your instructions indicate you should cream butter and sugar. How much sugar do you cream with the butter?
Angela @ BakeItWithLove.com says
No, I'll need to pop in and correct that. Just start out with beating the butter, the confectioners' sugar is added in the next step. Enjoy!!
Mary says
That answers my question. Kept looking for a sugar measurement. Cannot wait to try.