Whipped Shortbread Cookies
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
These traditional shortbread cookies are the Christmas cookies my mom makes every holiday season. They’re whipped shortbread cookies that are so soft they literally melt in your mouth. You will LOVE them!
This has long been my favorite shortbread recipe. The cookies are so soft that they literally melt in your mouth. They are different from Scottish shortbread cookies, which are firmer. Eating this shortbread is like eating buttery, soft, crumbly clouds. This recipe is for you if you want soft, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread. (And really, who doesn’t want that?)
This is the shortbread cookie recipe my family has been making for decades. They were part of the Christmas cookie spread that always included Mom’s Nanaimo Bars, turtles, and butter tarts. Christmas wouldn’t be the same without them.
These shortbread cookies are crazy soft. When I say they melt in your mouth, I mean it. No chewing is required. They’re the most tender shortbread cookies you will ever eat. In the words of one of our taste testers, “I don’t know what just happened in my mouth, but I want more of it.”
This recipe has only five ingredients, is made in one bowl, and is the best shortbread recipe ever. Are you sold? You should be!
This easy recipe is made with only five ingredients!
- Butter – I prefer to use salted butter. If you only have unsalted butter, simply add salt to the recipe. Make sure the butter is at room temperature before making these cookies.
- Flour – Unbleached, all-purpose flour works best in this recipe.
- Icing sugar – Also known as powdered sugar.
- Cornstarch – This is added to make the shortbread cookies even softer.
- Vanilla – I add this for a subtle flavor.
Making whipped shortbread is incredibly easy. But it helps to look at the pictures above to see what the dough looks like at the four stages as you beat it.
- You’ll start by slowly mixing the salted butter, flour, icing sugar, cornstarch, and vanilla using electric beaters at their lowest setting. This is to prevent a cloud of flour dust from flying out of the bowl. After a minute, the dough will no longer be dusty but will have larger chunks of butter coated in flour.
- A few minutes later, when the dough begins to look like sand, increase the beaters to medium speed. You’ll likely think it will never come together at this point, but have patience and trust that it will.
- Keep beating the sandy dough for 3-4 minutes. Suddenly, you will feel your beaters start to strain, and the dough will come together.
- Turn your beaters up to high and beat the dough for another 1-2 minutes, or until it resembles thick whipped cream.
Now, all that’s left to do is drop mounds of the dough onto baking sheets and bake them for 15 minutes. It’s so easy!
Using a stand mixer to make shortbread cookies is a little trickier as you have to stop often to scrape the bowl AND it’s easy to overwhip them.
- Always use the whisk attachment. The paddle attachment is not able to whip the shortbread properly.
- Stop frequently to scrape the side of the bowl. Otherwise, some of the dough will be whipped and some won’t. You’ll see the difference the first time you stop to scrape the bowl.
- Keep a close eye on the dough at the end. As soon as it resembles thick whipped cream, stop beating it. Overbeating the dough can cause the cookies to flatten when they bake.
- The total time you’ll need to whip the cookie dough in a stand mixer is about 5 minutes.
Variations to try
- Top with red and green sprinkles for Christmas shortbread cookies. You can also try blending the sprinkles right into the batter.
- Add lemon or orange zest to the batter.
- Drizzle the tops with chocolate.
- Swap the vanilla for your favorite flavor extract.
- Make whipped shortbread cookies with Toblerone by stirring 1 cup of chopped Toblerone into the batter.
- Several readers have commented that they’ve had success using this dough with a cookie press.
Store and freeze
This shortbread cookie recipe is great to make ahead of time. Not only do they keep well for many days on your counter, but you can also store them in your freezer for months. So go ahead and make a big batch and have some on hand next time a cookie craving strikes!
Store: This is a great recipe to make ahead of time, as they keep well for many days on your counter. I usually keep some on a plate (for easy access) and put the rest in a bag. They will keep for a week on your counter or up to two weeks in the fridge.
Freeze: When I was a kid, my mom would make these a month or more before Christmas and store them in a container in the freezer. Once thawed, you’ll never know they were frozen. Tip ⇢ stack them between layers of parchment paper to protect them.
Best Shortbread Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups salted butter (at room temperature – see notes)
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- ½ cup cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- Colored candied cherries or dried cranberries (for garnish)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Position your oven rack in the middle of your oven.
- Add the flour, butter, powdered sugar, cornstarch, and vanilla to a deep mixing bowl.3 cups all-purpose flour, 2 cups salted butter, 1 cup powdered sugar, ½ cup cornstarch, 1 teaspoon vanilla
- Begin mixing the ingredients using electric beaters at their lowest speed. Once the dry ingredients begin mixing with the butter and are not dusty anymore, increase the speed to medium.
- A few minutes later, the dough will start to look like sand. Keep beating the dough for another 3-4 minutes and it will start to come together.
- Once the dough comes together and your beaters start straining, increase the speed to high and beat the dough for another 1-2 minutes, or until it resembles thick whipped cream.
- Drop the dough into small mounds (about 2-3 tablespoons) on a baking sheet. If using, gently press a dried cranberry into the tops of the cookies. Note: Make sure the cookie dough is cold before you put it in the oven. If your house is quite warm, chill the cookies in the fridge before you bake them. Bake for 15 minutes. It is best to bake one sheet of cookies at a time. Use a new sheet pan for the next batch. The cookie dough must be added to a cool baking sheet.Colored candied cherries or dried cranberries
- Let the cookies cool for at least 10 minutes then use an offset spatula or slotted fish spatula to remove the cookies from the sheet pan and transfer them to a cooling rack.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
We have thoroughly tested this recipe for accuracy. However, individual results may vary. See our full recipe disclosure here.
Popular Christmas Baking Recipes
For more inspiration, check out all of my cookie recipes!
What an easy and delicious cookie! I love a cookie with simple flavors and the texture is perfect!
I’m so happy you enjoyed the recipe!
Can you bake as bars?
I haven’t tried it but I don’t think it would work well. This shortbread is very soft. Usually, shortbread that is baked into bars is quite hard and crunchy.
Ahhhhh-mazing! I had never made shortbread before and these are spectacular. My husband is a shortbread fanatic and he couldn’t get over how delicious these are. I am heading to the store to get more butter right now! Thank you!
Also, I used crushed Cadbury Mini Eggs as garnish…in case you didn’t think these could get better!
What a great idea!!
I made these over Christmas and they were a huge hit. Super yummy! I just made them again. This time I used a regular cookie scoop and got double the amount. Around 60 cookies this time. I also added chocolate chips just for fun and they were excellent!!!!
Made half this recipe and regretted it immediately. They are soooo delicious!
Absolutely melt in your mouth – the title doesn’t lie. Also very simple to make. I would make them a little smaller than the recipe states but that’s just personal preference.
Have bookmarked this recipe and shared with friends. It’s a keeper
I used the plain old whisk by hand (great exercise), but it turned out well except that it’s too sweet. I’ll try it again with less sugar next time…
Wow that must have been quite the arm workout! Good for you!!
Got your heaping tablespoon amount INCORRECT!
A heaping tablespoon is 3 TEASPOONS not 3 tablespoons.
3 teaspoons do equal 1 tablespoon. However, when I take a big, heaping tablespoon, it equals 3 level tablespoons. I’ve measured, just to be sure. 🙂
Excellent shortbread cookies. Melt in your mouth is right. A keeper, will be making them again for sure. The taste is very good.
Mine melted into one large cookie sheet while baking ?. Not sure what I did wrong…I halved the recipe and used gluten free 1 to 1 flour… maybe i needed to fridge or before baking.
Gluten-free flours do act quite differently, even 1-1 a mix. So it could have been that, or they may have been too warm before going into the oven. I would put them into the fridge for an hour before you bake them next time as you suggested. 🙂
Flavour was perfect, not too sweet at all! Only issue I had is the recipe is so thick to start with, my poor old mixer finally died about half way through the 10 minutes. Cookies were still delicious just not melt in your mouth
Rest in piece to my old hand mixer as well (2001 – 2021)
O….M….G!!!!! The best shortbread cookie I have ever tasted! Sorry Nana 😉 Absolutely delectable! I followed the recipe exactly as you wrote it and holy guacamole, melt in your mouth deliciousness! Thank you for sharing Kristen, this is now my forever shortbread recipe that I will pass on to my daughter and or granddaughters. Today is Christmas Eve, I consider this recipe and instruction as my best gift of the season. Merry Christmas to you and yours, Kristen. Be well and blessed be <3
Kristen,
I should mention that I changed the recipe from cups to grams. I saw a few folks asking for metric conversion. So I will share, I hope that is ok.
3 cups all purpose flour=450 gms
1 cup icing sugar=120 gms
1/2 cup cornstarch=60 gms
As mentioned, this recipe and your instruction are “a bite of heaven in my
mouth!” Those words are what came out of my partners mouth after his first bite!
Cheers and kind regards
Brenda
Thank you so much for sharing these conversions!!
Thank you, Brenda! Merry Christmas to you, too!
I did 10 minutes in stand mixer and they were wonderful.
Would these works with bob’s gluten free flour?
This recipe needs a little tweaking with gf flour. Here’s the gluten free version: https://www.theendlessmeal.com/gluten-free-shortbread-cookies/ 🙂
Haven’t made Christmas cookies for years, but these are just as I remembered and just as advertised. Melt in your mouth delectable.
Where did we go wrong? Only added half the flour and ended up with sand…. nothing like whipped cream at all?
It sounds like you need to add more butter. I’ll be updating the recipe soon to include weight measurements so it is more accurate. For now, add more softened butter, a little at a time, and continue to beat it until it becomes creamy looking.
Very good making 2nd batch
The cookies looked amazing coming out of the oven, however the taste for me was nonexistent. They were very tasteless and bland. Not very sweet and I wasnt expecting overly sweet but I couldn’t even taste the sugar from the overpowering flour/starch taste.
I did beat for the recommended time and they were very soft and melt in your mouth. I’m not sure but this combination of 1 cup sugar to 3.5 cups starch seems unbalanced in flavor for me and my family
It’s not a sweet cookie recipe. If you’d like, a dusting of icing sugar sweetens them up!