Shortbread is one of the best kind of cookies. They’re incredibly easy to make and only take a few minutes to put together. And they taste AMAZING. They aren’t overbearingly sweet and are very light; making them a perfect pairing for a nice, hot cup of coffee or even a glass of wine. Or by themselves. Even people without a sweet tooth can appreciate shortbread.

Per usual, I can eat an entire batch on my own. And I pretty much did for the first batch. In one day. Oops.

In fact, I’ve baked three batches of these things this month. I did share some of them with my colleagues though, and I gave a batch to my friend Nikita for her birthday (they’re one of her favorites!) and I’m going to be baking another batch tonight to share for our Christmas lunch party in the office tomorrow. Fingers crossed that I can actually make it that far without eating all the cookies…

At least if that’s the case, I’ll be running off all the cookies at BlackListLA tonight. It’s this awesome running group that gets together every Monday night to run around the city. My friend and I recently decided we’re going to run a half marathon together in February so it’s time to start working towards that! It’s definitely easier to run when you have the motivation of hundreds of people (whom are all shapes and sizes and run at many different paces) running towards the same goal at their own pace. So, it’s time to run off these holiday calories…

It’s almost Christmas! 😀

Classic Shortbread Cookies
makes 2 dozen cookies, takes 30 minutes
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp. salt

Optional: 1/4 cup turbinado sugar

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine salt and flour. Set aside. In a medium bowl, mix together the butter, white sugar, and vanilla. Combine the contents of the two bowls to make the dough. The dough should be pretty thick. Roll out the dough so that it is about 1/4 inch thick. Use cookie cutters or a cup to make shaped cookies. (Mine made about 24 2-inch cookies). Roll the edges of the cookies in the turbinado sugar or sprinkle a small amount of sugar atop each cookie.

Bake the cookies for about 13-15 minutes or until the edges begin to turn golden brown, then take out immediately.

These are super yummy with coffee, hot chocolate, or on their own.

Happy Holidays everyone! 🙂