76 shortbread cookie recipes

Lemon roll-out cookies with sour cream, lemon zest and lemon extract, brushed with fresh lemon juice before baking. Tender citrus shortbread for tea trays and gift tins.

Jan Hagels are crisp Dutch shortbread cookies spiced with cinnamon and ginger, brushed with egg white, and topped with chopped pecans or walnuts. Sliced into rectangular bars while warm.

Old-fashioned jelly cookies: buttery shortbread rounds sandwiched with red raspberry jelly and dusted in powdered sugar. The kind that gets softer and better as the jelly soaks in.

Ultra-tender shortbread cookies with a full pound of unsalted butter, sweetened condensed milk, and cornstarch for a melt-on-your-tongue crumble. Baked low and slow until barely golden.

Almond rolls are buttery shortbread logs made with just four ingredients: butter, sugar, ground almonds, and flour. The kind of cookie tin staple that goes with afternoon tea or coffee.

Layer cookies with a buttery shortbread base topped with a crisp brown sugar meringue and chopped nuts. The egg yolks go in the bottom layer, the whites become the chewy topping.

Buttery brown sugar shortbread pressed into a sheet pan, brushed with egg white, and topped with cinnamon sugar and sliced almonds. Cut into elegant diamond shapes for a cookie platter showstopper.

Decadent chocolate mint melt-aways: tender piped mint shortbread topped with white chocolate mint ganache and dipped in bittersweet chocolate. Three layers of cool mint and rich chocolate in one cookie.

Orange custard cookies are mini tartlets with buttery shortbread shells filled with an almond-orange flower water custard, baked in muffin tins. Two dozen elegant bite-sized desserts with a Mediterranean fragrance.

Buttery Italian-style shortbread cookies made with powdered sugar, vanilla, and three-quarters of a pound of real butter. Chill the dough, roll it out, cut your favorite shapes, and bake until golden.

Buttery thumbprint cookies with a gross-out Halloween twist: pale, tender shortbread rounds dimpled and filled with dark blackberry jam that looks like a 'blackhead.' Easy, funny, and good enough to disappear fast.

Koala Kookies are buttery walnut shortbread balls dusted in powdered sugar. Five ingredients, no eggs, and a melt-in-your-mouth texture that puts these in the same family as Mexican wedding cookies, Russian tea cakes, and Greek kourabiedes.