I’ve posted this before. These have been a favorite for a very long time…so simple, easy to handle and buttery good. Any size cookie cutter will do, but I prefer them small. Salted butter makes a big flavor difference here IMO. These have more of the ”sandy” texture of traditional shortbread.

Scottish Shortbread

Note: I often double the recipe.

2 cups flour
2 T. cornstarch
Pinch salt
1/2 cup plus 2 T. powdered sugar
2 sticks salted butter, room temp.
1/2 tsp. vanilla

First, remove 2 T. from the 2 cups of flour and replace with the 2 T. cornstarch. Mix salt with flour/cornstarch. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and mix until just blended. Form into ball and wrap in plastic. Chill for about 30 minutes to an hour.

Preheat oven to 325.

Roll dough out on lightly floured surface to about 3/8- to 1/2-inch thickness. Cut out shapes with about 1 1/2-inch cookie cutter. Place on parchment lined cookie sheet and bake about 20 minutes. Watch carefully, you want them to just barely get color (depending on your oven, you may need a little less or more time). Remove from oven, sprinkle with fine or granulated sugar (optional), let sit for about 10 minutes, and remove to rack to cool.

ETA - I usually chill the cut out cookies on the baking sheet 5-10 minutes before putting them in the oven.

I think my absolute faves are butter spritz from a recipe handed down from my great-uncle Barney. I've shared it here before. I imagine it might've come from a cookie press package, but they are the best and very simple to make. I always sprinkle some sugar on top before baking.

I do make gingerbread cookies every year, from an old Christmas cookbook of my mom's, but they're in second place. I made a batch last week and froze it to make closer to the holiday.

A rolled and cut cookie I like a lot, which we always had instead of gingerbread when I was a kid, is Molasses Cut-Outs - from the 1960 WI Electric cookbook. They are sturdy and crisp and hold up to icing - like a molasses-flavored sugar cooky.

Those cookbooks are available online - and you can download .pdfs

https://www.we-energies.com/recipes/archive

My sister's faves are Ella's Sugar Cookies from that same book.

The one everyone clamors for is chocolate crinkles/snowballs, which are rather soft, rolled in balls and sugared like snickerdoodles. They're not my fave tho.

Carol, your uncle's spritz cookies are the best! The only one I've ever tried that's actually good. :) Thanks for reminding me. I think I have some "holiday" dies for my press.

Chloebud, it always amazes me how many different ways one can vary the recipe and still end up with Scottish shortbread!

I’m not that into cookies, although I’ll have a chocolate chip cookie. The explosion of cookie baking at my house in holidaytime is largely wasted on me. SWMBO’s almond roca, on the other hand, is one of the season’s highlights!

what I’d like is for someone in my house to start making eclairs. Alas, no-one is interested.

“Chloebud, it always amazes me how many different ways one can vary the recipe and still end up with Scottish shortbread!”

Very true! The recipe came from a good friend’s Scottish grandmother, so I’ve always used that title. The recipe I was given had no salt or vanilla, so I tweaked them in. Better IMO!

LOL! I think we've discussed it before. My nanny's "real" shortbread is just flour, sugar and (salted) butter.

John, eclairs are easy. I'm sure anyone in your house of cooks can make and pipe pâte à choux. It's pretty darned easy. So, after baking, turn off the oven before they're 100%, prop open the door, and let them dry and cool in the warmth. Make pastry cream (i.e., sweetened custard). Pipe in from the bottoms of the ends with a long filling tip. Optionally, dip the top in ganache and dry on a grid rack. You, Mr. Liu, can do this. If you start it in front of your skillful kids, they will, if you look winsome and pathetic enough, wrest the project away from you and finish it properly.

Jamaican Rock Buns

My absolute favorite cookie of all time. We probably bake 40 or 50 dozen each year. A traditional Jamaican treat. The trick is to make them look like rocks.

Ingredients

• 4 cups all purpose flour, packed
• all of the zest of an orange
• all of the juice of the orange
• 2 sticks unsalted butter diced as small as possible
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup toasted coconut flakes
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees
• In a medium bowl, whisk or sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, grated orange, and nutmeg
• Work in the butter just until the mixture is unevenly crumbly; it's OK for some larger chunks of butter to remain unincorporated.
• Stir in the raisins and coconut flakes
• Whisk together eggs, orange juice, and vanilla
• Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients and knead until all is moistened and holds together.
• Shape tablespoon size chunks of the dough into rocks and place on a parchment-covered baking sheet.
• Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned
• Remove, let it cool and serve
• Yields around 6 dozen

I make cookies all the time so "holiday cookie making" is not always a big deal for me. Some years I make several different kinds for gifting but will probably skip the massed batch baking this year as I do a different cookie a week right now for a teenage nephew whose mom is ill and who also has a bottomless appetite. And a bunch of hungry friends :-)

Lemon bars are my family's favorite hands down so they are always in the rotation, sometimes with cranberries at this time of year. Other recents are Sweet Dream bars, Toll House chocolate chip and oatmeal craisin. This week it will be Peanut butter kisses and then chocolate crinkles. And I found a recipe for gingerbread blondies that sounded tasty so may try them as well.

I also make mincemeat tarts every year but I am one of the few in my family that like them so I make them just for me! Others come and go but I can't be bothered with rolled or cut out cookies.

Shortbread/sables. Miso, matcha green tea, black sesame, meyer lemon. I like a rolled dough i can thaw, slice, and bake. All recipes here, Justonecookbook

I tend to make a lot of cookies year-round (peanut butter, shortbread (Ina's), Annie's molasses...). If you're just looking for killer recipes, I nominate LindaC's butter? cookies. They keep their shape, and are exceptionally tasty. As I state in the thread, iced with royal icing, they're the perfect cookie.

Pretty plate, party!

What are Florentine triangles?

These bars are another favorite and hold well in the freezer. Photo below is from online since it’s a better closeup than mine.

Caramel Crumb Bars (Recipe from Nick Malgiere)

Dough
8 oz. butter (2 sticks), softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling
4 T. butter
1 T. light corn syrup
1/4 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1 (14 oz) can sweetened, condensed milk

One 9 x 13 x 2 inch pan, buttered and lined fully (bottom and sides) with buttered parchment or foil

Set rack in lowest level of oven and preheat to 350.

For the dough, beat the butter, sugar and salt in an electric mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed until soft and light, 2-3 minutes. Add the vanilla.

On lowest speed, beat in 2 1/4 cups flour, scraping the bowl and paddle with a rubber spatula, continuing to mix until the dough is smooth, and the flour has been absorbed.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and scrape 3/4 of the dough into the prepared pan. Press the dough down evenly, without compressing it too much. Chill the dough-lined pan. Work the remaining 1/4 cup flour into the remaining dough with your fingertips, so that it forms 1/8-1/4 inch crumbs. Set aside at room temp.

For the filling, in a medium saucepan, combine all filling ingredients and simmer, stirring occasionally. All the mixture to boil gently, stirring often, until it starts to thicken and darken slightly, about 10 minutes. Pour into a stainless steel bowl to cool for 5 minutes.

Remove the dough lined pan from the refrigerator and scrape the cooled filling onto the dough, using a small offset spatula to spread the filling evenly on the dough. Scatter the crumb mixture on the filling.

Bake until the filling is bubbling gently and is a deep caramel color and the dough and crumb topping are baked through, about 30 minutes.

Cool in the pan on a rack until lukewarm, 15-20 minutes. Lift the slab of baked dough out of the pan and onto a cutting board before it has cooled completely. Cut the slab into 2 inch squares.

Storage - Store tightly covered at room temp if you are serving them within a couple days. If not, wrap well and freeze, then thaw to room temp for serving.

carolb, thank you, I love that plate!!! I posted about it on the antiques forum and someone found that it was from the Candlewick pattern from Imperial Glass Co, and my large "square" platter seems to be rare. It competes for my affection though... I also have a large original Mr Peanut jar that I love and it serves as my cookie jar. lol!

Florentine triangles are made with a buttery crust base, then a topping of boiled butter-sugar-cream, that you then add candied fruits, dried fruits, nuts, or whatever your preference to. Pour the topping onto the crust and bake til lovely golden, then splatter it with melted chocolate, and when cool, cut into pretty triangles. This recipe looks exactly like the one I use:

https://www.familycookbookproject.com/recipe/3486907/florentine-triangle-jewels.html

But... we aren't keen on candied fruits so I use m. cherries and sliced almonds, like this before cutting:

Oh yum!

And the peanut jar is pretty cute 😀

DH would love those Florentine triangles. I often make him Florentines for special occasions because they’re a lot of work- just candied fruits and craisins stuck together with toffee and then coated with chocolate on the bottoms once the toffee hardens.

At Christmas I make a variety of cookies that I only make at Christmas, so they’re special. It irks me that thingas which used to be prized because we only got them in season or at particular times of the years. are now available almost year round so they aren’t really a treat any more. You can pretty well guarantee that Easter buns will go on sale on Boxing Day if not before :-(

Otherwise I probably make chocolate chip cookies (my favourite), peanut butter criss crosses (one of the girls at work’s favourite) and Anzacs (everyone likes Anzacs) the most. I used to make a lot of lemon bars but haven’t for a couple of years because one of the girls at work is lactose intolerant and I couldn’t make my particular recipe with margarine. But today was her last day at work so next year I’ll make lemon bars again :-) I take cookies or cake in every week at work to share and I think it helps to make our team more cohesive. Certainly everyone enjoys them!

Yes, colleenoz, the florentine triangles are a lot of work and only made for xmas. They’re definitely not diet food either. lol!

What are anzacs?! I’m not seeing a cookie when I do a search!

For Christmas, I usually make biscotti, and I make the hard kind, with no butter or shortening, and so they have to be dipped in a beverage before eating. They are best with coffee, but I eat them with tea.

I also make chocolate crinkle cookies:

and Danish butter cookies.

I do a variation of the oatmeal raisin cookie in that I substitute granola (that has almonds and coconut) for the oatmeal and reduce the amount of sugar. I also always add chocolate chips to oatmeal raisin cookies. The granola version comes out very crunchy, which I like, but I also like chewy oatmeal cookies. I haven't bought oatmeal in a long time because I make steel cut oats instead, but we do have granola.

The Danish butter cookies can be made with a cookie press, but that's the only recipe I have like that, and so I do not have my own cookie press. I suppose shortbread could use a cookie press also, but I haven't made that recently.

I haven't made gingersnaps in a while because we buy them at Trader Joe's.

After all these years I'm down to a single cookie for Christmas. It seems to be loved by everyone I share with, so that makes it a no-brainer.

Crispy Salted Oatmeal Cookies from America's Test Kitchen.

i make cookies that the 'silly rabbit' would love ... they are called domina-tricks

::snicker:: Do you put cereal on them? Or is it just a pun and no cookies?

@party_music50, here’s a link to a recipe for Anzacs and and explanation of their origins:

Anzac recipe

Thank you, colleenoz! That looks like a good recipe. I've made a similar recipe but it used rice krispies cereal instead of oats, and they had a wonderful light crispy texture.

So I've been pondering what is meant by 'dominate' in the title of this topic. I'm unclear on what that means...?

What makes a cookie dominate?

Just reductive bestiness. It may not happen on the traditional Christmas cookie platter with a dozen different cookies, or the cookie trees of my childhood, for the vast quantity of events and dogged cookie consumption thereby, ditto. But for less than the masses, like one party of 20-25 people of sense, one batch of The Expert's Toll House cookies was plenty, and if choosing one cookie, that's the one. And rolled and cut shortbread is next. no applesauce, oatmeal or molasses ginger cookies, though they're all great. No Linzers or peanut butter, or almond. No biscochitos, gingerbread or lemondrops. So many really good cookies going unborn through the dominance of the chewy brownsugary chocolate chip.

PM, I love the cookie plate. I have a smaller version of the Planter's Peanut jar, I think newer than yours because it has a plastic seal that makes the glass lid more air tight.

Cookies? Oh geez, I like them all, I think, LOL. My personal favorite is shortbread, my former boss used to say it was just butter and sugar held together with flour, what's not to like? Add some caramel and chocolate and you get Millionaire's Shortbread which is even better.

My Christmas Cookie though? It has to be a toss up between two that I only make at Christmas. One is craftyrn's Cuccidati, an Italian fig filled cookie, like a Fig Newton but really good. The other would be Sheshebop's Santa's Helpers, they were her "secret weapon" and they are amazing.

Annie