How to Make the Best-Ever Shortbread Cookies, According to Ina Garten

Get your stand mixers ready because holiday baking season is here! This time of year is pure magic when the kitchen comes alive with the delightful smell of cookies and cakes and other treats. It’s a time for making memories, experimenting with new recipes and/or sneaking tastes of baked goods (and batter) when you can. Baking brings people together, fills homes with holiday cheer and turns simple ingredients into delicious desserts that everyone can enjoy. And what's simpler than a good shortbread cookie?

Shortbread cookies are one of the simplest cookies out there—all you need is butter, sugar and flour to make these rich, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth cookies. The high butter content gives shortbread its tenderness and because it has no leavening agents (like baking powder or baking soda), they have a dense, satisfying texture.

Another great thing about shortbread is that it's a blank canvas for your culinary creativity. Once you have a solid shortbread recipe, you can dress the cookies up in numerous ways.

When we were doing some research to find some fun Christmas cookie upgrades to try, we ran across an Ina Garten video from the TODAY Show. In the video, Ina shared how to dress up her shortbread cookie dough with chocolate, nuts, sprinkles and more. Put her tips to use this baking season to gussy up your shortbread cookies in the most delicious ways.

Related: We Baked Cookies With 10 Different All-Purpose Flours and the Winner Won By a Landslide

😋😋 SIGN UP to get delicious recipes, handy kitchen hacks & more in our daily Pop Kitchen newsletter 🍳🍔

Ina Garten's Top Shortbread Tips

Garten said she enjoys baking, but she doesn't always like making a lot of different doughs. "I make shortbread dough and I make lots of different cookies out of it," she said. Here are her top tips on making sure those cookies are Ina-approved.

• Cut first, chill later. Many recipes for cut-out cookies call for making the dough, chilling it and then rolling it out, but Ina prefers to make the dough, cut out her shapes, then stash the unbaked cutouts in the fridge or the freezer. This technique makes it easier to get sharp, professional-looking edges on your cookies and also lets you bake off as many cookies as you'd like. Just pull out the cutouts, bake and decorate.

Related: How to Make Sugar Cookies 10x Better, According to the 'King of Cookie Week'

• Keep the shapes simple. Ina is all about elegant simplicity, and that ethos extends to her shortbread cookies. When she's cutting out shapes she goes with a basic star, a ring that can be turned into a wreath and hearts.

• Go easy on the add-ons. Ina also keeps her cookie decorating minimal. For the stars, she makes a simple powdered sugar glaze (powdered sugar, milk, maybe some citrus zest, if you're feeling fancy), then adds some red sprinkles. "Just a bit," she says. "Stylish." The cookie rings are also glazed, then Ina adds silver dragees to give the wrings a festive wreath vibe. And the hearts? She dips them halfway in chocolate. (Pro tip: Freeze some heart cutouts now and bake them off for Valentine's Day.)

Related: The Genius Christmas Cookie Trick We Wish We'd Known About Sooner

• Sandwich them. Ina's favorite cookie? Linzers, the jam-stuffed sandwich cookies. To turn the shortbread into linzer cookies, she cuts out circles and sandwiches them with some of the rings, spreading jam (raspberry is her favorite) in between to reveal the jam beneath. If you want to get fancy, you can dust the cookie rings with powdered sugar before assembling the cookie sandwiches. Linzer cookies are great made with jam, but they're also tasty with Nutella or lemon curd spread between the cookies.

• Don't forget the scraps. Ina also has a plan for the dough scraps. With her leftover dough, Garten said she smushes it together and shapes it into a small square. She bakes those and then tops them with a pecan that's held in place with a drop of chocolate. How easy is that?

Up Next: 

Related: The Simple 150-Year-Old Family Cookie Recipe I Make Every Year