Flavored with orange zest and cinnamon, these sweet shortcrust pastry cookies are delicious Christmas cookies to make for the holiday season.
We make a sweet flavored shortcrust pastry as you would for a sweet pie crust, but then roll it out and use cookie cutters to make fun Christmas cookie shapes and bake them in the oven. Once they're golden brown and fully baked we leave them to cool and then decorate them with icing and buttercream frosting.
Shortcrust cookies are so easy to make; you can eat them plain or decorate them however you like. I got some cute cookie cutters in Christmas shapes like Christmas trees, reindeer, stars and presents but you can experiment and have fun with them!
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Why make cookies from shortcrust pastry?
- It's so easy: These Christmas cookies use ingredients you will likely already have and no fancy equipment.
- You can use up leftovers: I love to make shortcrust pastry biscuits (as we call them in the UK) using leftover pie crust dough if I have some scraps from making a dessert like this white chocolate tart. It's a great way to use up leftover pastry and reduce food waste.
- They are easy to decorate: These Christmas cookies have a flat surface making them very easy to pipe decorations onto.
Ingredients
This easy recipe for sweet shortcrust pastry bakes a beautifully buttery and crisp cookie that melts in the mouth. Here are the ingredients you will need to make them.
Ingredients for orange cinnamon pastry cookies
- Unsalted butter
- All-purpose flour/plain flour
- Powdered sugar/icing sugar
- Egg yolk (always use room temperature eggs in baking)
- Water
- Orange zest
- Ground cinnamon
Ingredients for orange buttercream frosting
- Unsalted butter
- Powdered sugar/icing sugar
- Orange zest
Ingredients for orange icing
- Powdered sugar/icing sugar
- Water
- Orange juice
See the recipe card for the quantities and instructions.
Instructions
Here is how to make this easy shortcrust cookies recipe all ready for Christmas.
Orange Cinnamon Pastry
- Weigh all of your ingredients and sieve the flour and powdered sugar. Zest and juice the orange.
- Take the butter from the fridge, cut it into small chunks and place in a large mixing bowl. We always want to use cold butter, but allow it to soften for 20 minutes.
- Mix the egg yolk with the water.
- Using a spatula, cream together the butter and powdered sugar and add the orange zest. You can use an electric whisk but be careful not to overwork it.
- Cut in the flour and cinnamon until the mixture resembles ground almonds and there are no big lumps of butter mixture remaining.
- Slowly add the egg yolk and water mixture whilst stirring until it comes together into a ball of slightly sticky pastry dough.
- Turn the shortcrust pastry cookie dough out onto clingfilm/food wrap, cover it and then flatten it into a small disk to make it easier to roll out. Chill the dough in the fridge for one hour.
- Lightly dust a worktop with flour and turn out the sweet shortcrust cookie pastry dough. Turning it frequently so it doesn't stick, roll out the dough into a circle 5mm thick.
Expert tip
Whenever you make sweet pastry, always add the moisture (in this case, egg yolk and water) slowly. The water content in butter can vary, so you may not need the full amount of extra moisture in your dough.
How to bake Shortcrust pastry cookies
- Use your cookie cutters to cut shapes and place them on lined baking trays/cookie sheets. Cover with food wrap and rest in the fridge for a further 20 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius / 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Bake the pastry cookies for 10 minutes or until a pale golden brown.
How to make orange buttercream frosting
- Cut the butter into small chunks and leave in a mixing bowl for 20 minutes to soften.
- Sieve the powdered sugar to remove lumps.
- Using an electric whisk, cream the butter and then slowly add the powdered sugar until you have a thick, creamy buttercream. Stir in the orange zest.
How to make orange flavor cookie icing
- Boil a kettle as we need hot water to mix this icing.
- Sieve the powdered sugar into a mixing bowl.
- Slowly add the orange juice and hot water whilst stirring vigorously to achieve a glossy icing glaze of your desired consistency. For piping defined lines and shapes, it will need to be quite thick.
Decorate your Christmas pastry cookies
- For a quick and easy method, simply dip the shortcrust pastry cookies into the orange icing/glaze.
- To pipe the orange buttercream frosting onto the cookies, place it into a piping bag first. Use a metal piping nozzle to create shapes, or cut a small tip from the end of the bag to create lines. This useful youtube video shows you how you can create piping nozzle shapes using ziplock bags!
Variations
There are several ways you can adapt this Christmas pastry cookie recipe to suit you.
- Spices - add nutmeg and ground ginger too.
- Deluxe - dip them in this delicious lemon curd.
- Chocolate icing - add high-quality cocoa powder to the icing to make it chocolaty.
- Chocolate cookies - Substitute one tablespoon of flour for a tablespoon of high-quality cocoa powder to make chocolate flavor shortcrust pastry cookies.
Try these brown butter pecan cookies with chocolate chips next if you're on a baking spree...
Equipment notes
I always weigh my ingredients for these sweet shortcrust pastry cookies with a digital scale and I avoid the cup system as measuring by volume is not precise enough for baking, in my opinion.
You will need two large mixing bowls, and a good silicon spatula to mix ingredients with. You can use an electric whisk in this recipe, but it is not necessary. You will also need a sieve to eliminate any lumps in your flour or sugar.
Use baking trays or cookie sheets that have low sides (or no sides at all) as this reduces the amount of steam that can build up around the shortcrust pastry cookies as they bake in the oven.
To pipe my orange buttercream frosting onto these Christmas pastry cookies, I used a flower piping nozzle. This is a great guide to piping nozzles that I find fascinating!
Storage
Store your cookies in an airtight container and use them within 3 days.
You can easily freeze pastry cookie dough and defrost it to bake as needed. Wrap it thoroughly and use it within 1 month.
FAQ
Shortcrust pastry gets its name from the fact that the butter fat shortens the gluten strands in the flour, making a crumbly yet buttery and delicious pastry crust.
Yes! It is easy to use shortcrust pastry for cookies if you have any leftover pastry dough after rolling out pie crust, for example.
You want to avoid overworking the gluten, as this will hamper the shortening process. You also do not want to melt the butter, hence why we rest pastry dough frequently in the fridge.
Use high-quality butter with at least 82% fat content. Do not use spreadable butter in pastry.
Other delicious baked desserts to try
Recipe Card
Sweet Shortcrust Pastry Cookies With Cinnamon & Orange
Equipment
- 2 Mixing bowls
- 1 Sieve
- 1 silicon spatula
- 1 electric whisk or stand mixer
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 Cookie cutters
- 2 baking trays or cookie sheets
- 1 Piping bag and nozzles
Ingredients
Orange cinnamon pastry
- 110 grams all purpose flour /plain flour
- 50 grams powdered sugar /icing sugar
- 50 grams unsalted butter
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Buttercream frosting
- 75 grams unsalted butter
- 225 grams powdered sugar /icing sugar
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
Icing
- 100 grams powdered sugar /icing sugar
- 4 tablespoon hot/boiling water
- 1 tablespoon orange juice
Instructions
- Make your orange cinnamon pastry. Cut the butter into small chunks and allow it to soften slightly. Sieve in the flour and cinnamon into a bowl.
- Sieve the sugar into a separate large mixing bowl and add the softened butter. Cream them together with an electric whisk or stiff spatula until fully incorporated.
- Cut the flour/cinnamon into the creamed butter and sugar mixture using a spatula, until it resembles ground almonds with no big lumps of butter. Stir through the orange zest.
- Mix the egg yolk and water together and add it slowly to the mixture until it comes together into a soft, and just slightly sticky dough. You may not need all of it.
- Turn out the cinnamon orange pastry onto a piece of cling film/food wrap, flatten it out into a disc about one or two inches thick, wrap it up and rest the pastry in the fridge for one hour.
- Turn out the sweet shortcrust pastry dough onto a surface dusted with a little flour. Roll it out into a circle, taking care to turn it over and move it around a few times so it does not stick to the work surface.
- Once you have a round piece of pastry 5 millimetres thick, use your cookie cutters to cut shapes, and move them onto a lined cookie sheet or low sided baking tray.
- Rest the Christmas cookies in the fridge for 20 minutes, and preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius / 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Bake the pastry cookies in the oven for 10 minutes or until golden brown at the edges and leave to cool.
Orange buttercream frosting
- Cut the unsalted butter into small chunks and allow it to soften in a mixing bowl with the orange zest.
- Gradually sieve in the powdered sugar to the butter and orange zest and use an electric whisk to cream them together until you have a smooth and fluffy buttercream frosting.
- Add the buttercream frosting to a piping bag with a piping nozzle. I used a flower piping nozzle in size 108.
Orange cookie icing
- Sieve the powdered sugar and then stir in the orange juice and boiling water until you reach the desired consistency. Add to a piping bag or dip the cookies into the icing to coat them entirely.
Judith says
Such a great idea for using leftover pastry! I think I’ll make extra pastry just so that I can make more of these delicious cookies.
Emily says
Simple and delicious. I LOVE these cookies and am bringing them to my annual cookie swap in December. Thanks for the great recipe!
May says
I used an egg replacer and these cookies turned out perfect! I made them for friends at a home party and everyone loved them. Making them again soon!