Cinnamon Shortbread Snowflake Cookies

The holiday season just isn’t complete without at least one batch of cookie-cutter cookies!  They’re so much fun for kids and adults alike to decorate while listening to your favorite holiday tunes! These shimmery snowflake cookies made with butter, powdered sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla create delicious, crispy morsels you won’t want to live without! Plus you can hang them on your tree if you don’t gobble them all up!

Cinnamon adds a twinkly holiday twist to traditional shortbread and it smells divine baking in the oven. You can also punch a little hole in the top of the cookies before baking so you can hang them on your tree as ornaments. Fun and so pretty! We love the sparkle these add to our house during the holidays!

This frosting is just the best for decorating cookies because it holds up well and is thick enough to not run all over the place. It sets up beautifully! We used plain white, but you can totally add food coloring for a festive Christmas cookies.

These cookies are great any time of the year, with whatever cookie cutter shapes you like. We love to use the same recipe, minus the cinnamon, for our frosted animal cracker cookies, too.

Cinnamon Shortbread Snowflake Cookies (Can Use as Ornaments)

These shimmery snowflake cookies made with butter, powdered sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla create delicious, crispy morsels you won’t want to live without! Plus you can hang them on your tree if you don't gobble them all up!
Servings 24 Cookies
Prep Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Decorating Time 30 minutes

Equipment

  • Snowflake cookie cutters
  • edible silver shimmer glitter or shimmer dust
  • ribbons for hanging on the tree 1/2 to 5/8 inch wide and roughly 20 to 24 inches long for hanging cookies if using for decorations)

Ingredients

  • 1 cup 2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 3/4 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Royal Icing

  • 1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
  • 4 1/2 teaspoon meringue powder (available under the Wilton brand at Michael’s or Deb El at most markets)
  • 4 tablespoons warm water

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  • In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with powdered sugar until creamy. Add cinnamon, salt, and vanilla and mix well. Finally, blend in flour. Form dough into a ball and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes, or until fairly firm.
  • Roll dough out onto a floured cloth or board, to a thickness of approximately 1/4-inch. Cut out with snowflake-shaped cookie cutters and place onto the prepared baking sheet, about 1 inch apart.
  • If you want to make ornaments out of these, make a hole about 1/2-inch from the top of each cookie, before baking, using a regular plastic straw.
  • Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until slightly browned on edges. If the holes have closed up slightly, just use the same straw and carefully re-form the hole while the cookie is still hot and soft.
  • Cool completely. Thread ribbons through holes of each cookie and tie a knot in the top. Decorate with Royal Icing (recipe below) and immediately sprinkle each cookie with edible glitter and sugars, before icing hardens. Allow to sit for half an hour or until icing is firm, before hanging decorations.

Royal Icing

  • Place all ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
  • Beat on medium-high speed of an electric mixer until well-blended and stiff peaks form and the frosting looks creamy.
  • Tint with food coloring, if desired. (If you don’t use the frosting right away, cover completely either with plastic wrap or a damp towel over the top of the bowl, so it does not dry out. I just spooned it immediately into the decorating bag, and then put the whole thing in a Ziploc, until ready to decorate cookies.)
  • Spoon into a decorating bag, fitted with a #2 decorating tip. (You will need a plastic coupler, also, to affix the tip properly onto the bag. These items are available online or at Michael’s craft stores.) 
Course: Dessert
Keyword: Christmas cookies, cinnamon shortbread cookies, shortbread snowflake cookies
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Decorated Snowflake Cookies
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Stacks of Cinnamon Shortbread Snowflake Cookies

Royal Icing

I had never made this frosting before decorating cookies, but I will definitely use it again! Not only is it delicious, but it’s also easy to make using meringue powder in place of egg whites, and dreamy for decorating the cookies. It is so easy to use in the decorating bag, and it hardens up well so that the decorations don’t run off the cookies! Although I did not try it, I believe you could easily add a little vanilla extract in place of some of the water. 

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Make an assortment of snowflake sizes!

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