Shortbread Cookies with Lemon Icing

It was snowing shortbread cookies in my kitchen earlier this week!

This is one of my favourite cookie recipes for the holidays – the ingredients are simple and the lemon icing is a perfect match for the buttery cookie.

You can use any of your favourite cookie cutters to personalize these cookies and they will also be a hit at any cookie exchange!

I have so many fond memories of decorating these cookies as a kid; my mom would bake them and we’d decorate with a ton of sprinkles.

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Kitchen Equipment: cookie cutters, rolling pin
Servings: 20-24 cookies (depends on size of cookie cutter shapes)

Ingredients:
Cookies
1/2 pound (225g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup icing sugar
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
extra flour for rolling

Lemon Icing
1 3/4 cups icing sugar
3-4 tbsp lemon juice

Instructions:

**Take your butter out of the fridge a couple hours before making these cookies so it can soften to room temperature**

In a large mixing bowl beat the butter with a spoon. Gradually add in the icing sugar, mixing well after each addition of the sugar.

Next, in a separate bowl sift the flour, salt and baking powder together.

Then, add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Stir well with a spoon, combining until smooth. Then add in the last half of the flour mixture, stirring well again until smooth.

Cook’s Note: Towards the end of mixing in the last half of flour I used my hands to bring the dough together fully and it worked great!

Shape the dough into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and put the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes.

While the dough is in the fridge prepare your cookie sheets and line them with parchment.

After 30 minutes, take the dough out of the fridge and set your oven to 350F.

On a lightly floured surface, cut the dough in half and roll out one half of the dough to about a quarter inch thick. Cut out your cookie shapes, transfer to your baking sheet and then continue to use up the dough left after cutting cookies until there is little to no dough left.

Bake each sheet of cookies for 8-10 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes once you remove from the oven and then transfer to your cooling rack.

Once all of your cookies are cooled down you are ready to ice and decorate them!

To make the icing combine the icing sugar and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice in a bowl and mix until a smooth icing comes together. If it is too thick or there are still lumps of sugar, add in the final tablespoon of lemon juice. Then you are ready to ice and decorate your cookies as you see fit!

For my cookies I used a combination of gold and white sprinkles in various shapes.