Spiced shortbread biscuits slathered in orange buttercream frosting; perfect for a cosy winter treat or cute Christmas edible gift.
It’s kind of surprising that this is the first shortbread recipe I’m posting, given my slight obsession with the buttery, crumbly biscuit.
They don’t need a lot of ingredients, they’re infinitely customisable with different flavour combos, and they take just enough time to make to offer a good distraction. And afterwards, you have a rich, smells-like-happiness treat to enjoy.
What is Shortbread?
So named because of its crumbly texture, shortbread is a biscuit that today contains no leavening agents. Traditionally, it’s made from sugar, butter and a mixture of plain flour and rice flour or corn flour, which is what gives it its sandy quality.
Other videos you might like:
Back in the 12th century, the biscuit was first made from leftover sweetened bread dough. But it evolved over the years, losing the yeast and gaining butter, making it both expensive and fancy. And so it became a festive treat, baked only for holidays such as Christmas or Hogsmany, in much the same way as gingerbread biscuits were.
Shortbread generally comes in four different shapes: large rounds known as petticoat tails, fingers or small round discs; and nowadays, of course, cookie cutter shapes.
Festive and Winter Flavours
These shortbread stars are perfect no matter which hemisphere you’re in; in fact, you can make them twice in the southern hemisphere because they taste – and smell – like both Christmas and winter.
Cinnamon. Nutmeg. Orange. Vanilla.
All quintessential flavours that make you feel cosy and snug when it’s cold outside. All flavours that go well with hot chocolate. Or a London fog. Just sayin’…
Some Assembly not Necessarily Required
Admittedly, I started off wanting to make sandwich Christmas trees out of the shortbread, but my cookie cut-out stars were a little too close in size, and they looked… odd.
But really, you don’t have to do anything to these shortbread stars other than slather them with the orange buttercream frosting. From there, it depends on how much effort you want to go to: choose substantially differing sized cookie cutters to make shortbread sandwich Christmas trees; or do what I ended up doing and criss-cross the stars, building little Christmas trees that way.
Decorate individual biscuits with festive trim, hundreds and thousands, edible glitter, or even pipe little designs with the frosting.
They’re even good just as they are, subtly flavoured with warm, comforting spices.
Spiced Shortbread with Orange Buttercream
Ingredients
Spiced Shortbread
- 250 g unsalted butter
- 85 g caster sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla bean paste, or vanilla essence
- 340 g plain flour
- 40 g rice flour
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated, if possible
Orange Buttercream
- 140 g unsalted butter, softened
- 230 g icing sugar
- Zest from 1-2 oranges
- 2 tablespoons orange juice
- Sprinkles or dragees to decorate, optional
Instructions
- For the shortbread, start by beating the butter, caster sugar and vanilla bean paste in a stand mixer (see recipe notes) fitted with the paddle attachment until pale and fluffy.
- Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and sift in the plain flour, rice flour, cinnamon and nutmeg. Press the mixture together to form a dough, and then turn out onto a lightly-floured surface and knead gently until smooth.
- Divide the dough in half, and form two round, flat discs. Wrap each piece in plastic wrap separately, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C and line two baking trays with baking paper. Set aside.
- Working with 1 dough disc at a time, roll out the dough between two sheets of baking paper until 1cm thick. Using three different sized star cookie cutters, cut out stars from the dough. Re-roll the dough scraps and continue cutting out stars until all the dough has been used.
- Place the cut-out stars onto the baking trays, leaving some room around each biscuit, and keeping any smaller stars together on the same tray.
- Bake the smaller stars (3-5cms) for 10 minutes, and any bigger stars (7-10cms) for 15 minutes, until a very pale straw colour with the barest tinge of colour on the edges. Allow to set on the baking trays for 5 minutes before cooling completely on wire racks.
- To make the orange buttercream frosting, beat the butter in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until pale and smooth.
- Add the icing sugar, orange zest from 1 orange and the orange juice, and mix until thoroughly combined. If the orange flavour isn’t strong enough, add more zest from the second orange, not more juice (which could make the buttercream split or become too runny).
- Use the buttercream as a frosting to decorate the fully cooled shortbread or as a filling to sandwich two biscuits together to make Christmas trees or any other fun shapes.
Cook along with me
Notes
- Electric beaters will also work, if you don’t have or don’t want to pull out the stand mixer.
- Half a teaspoon of ginger would be a wonderful addition to these biscuits. I would have included ginger myself but these little shortbread trees were hostess gifts and my mum’s allergic!
