I’ve never been a huge fan of eggnog, but I am a huge fan of these eggnog flavoured shortbread! I think they may have become one of my favourite Christmas cookies. It’s a toss up between these darlings and walnut shortbread thumbprints with raspberry jam (recipe to come!) They have just the right amount of spice. And a hint of eggnog in both the cookie dough and the icing/drizzle.
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
- 1 and 1/4 cup of unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup of white sugar
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon of eggnog
- 3 and 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour
- 3 cups of icing sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
- 3 to 4 tablespoons of eggnog (enough to make a spreading consistency)
Method
- In a large bowl, beat the butter with an electric mixer on high for about 30 seconds. Add the sugar, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt. Beat until combined.
- Beat in vanilla, egg and eggnog into the dough.
- Beat in as much flour as you can with the mixer. If it becomes too tough, mix in the remaining dough by hand.
- Divide dough in half, cover and chill for 1 hour.
- Pre-heat oven to 375’F.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out one of the dough portions to 1/4 inch thick. Using a fluted 3 inch round cookie cutter, cut out the dough. Place dough rounds 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet (I used parchment paper).
- Bake cookies for about 8 to 10 minutes (or until the edges look lightly golden).
- Transfer cookies to a wire rack and cool. Repeat with second portion of dough.
- Once cooled, drizzle or ice the cookies with the eggnog drizzle/icing.
Cookies freeze extremely well. Once the cookies are drizzled with the icing, freeze cookies separately in the freezer, so they don’t stick together. Cookies last about 3 months in the freezer. This recipe made about 40 cookies.
Eggnog Drizzle/Icing
Stir 3 cups of icing sugar with 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. Slowly add in 3-4 tablespoons of eggnog or until you get the right consistency to either drizzle the icing or spread it. (note: I found 3 cups of icing sugar to be too much. I used 1.5 cups and it made plenty icing to ice all the cookies)
Source: BHG Christmas Cookies (Special Edition) 2009
I can’t believe you are not a fan of eggnog. I love it and I just purchased some at the store a few hours ago. I wanted to try and make something fun with it this year. These sound yummy.
Just wanted to let you know I made these cookies (LOVED them!!) and put up a post on my blog. Thanks for the recipe!
http://littlethingsxoxo.blogspot.com/2010/12/eggnog-shortbread.html