Shortbread Cookie Recipe For Embossed Rolling Pins

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Shortbread cookies are a delicious staple for a Christmas or winter treat.

They are not too sweet, and they have that satisfying soft, buttery and flaky consistency.

Wrapped in tradition and coated with memories, shortbreads have been around for years and years, and we have a way to kick them up a notch.

A new twist on the traditional shortbread cookies, is to make them using an embossed rolling pin.

Embossed rolling pins are just a slight tweak to the original wooden rolling pins. Embossed rolling pins are made with laser-etched patterns and images, which vary from snowflakes and frost to snowmen and reindeer. You can even find embossed rolling pins for any season or occasion!

When you are making shortbread cookies and detailing them using embossed rolling pins, you are going to want a recipe that doesn't stick too much to the rolling pin, and one that actually shows the pattern once you cook it.

Best Shortbread Cookie Recipe

This is the recipe we use for embossed rolling pins.

Shortbread cookie for embossed rolling pin ingredients:

This makes enough for 1 batch. You can double or triple this recipe for a bigger batch of cookies.

• 1 cup of soft butter
• 2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
• candy sprinkles and anything else you want to embellish your shortbread cookies with

Utensils:

• 1 regular rolling pin
• an embossed rolling pin
• cookie sheets
• parchment paper (not necessary but saves you time during clean up!)
• cookie cutters

Shortbread cookie for embossed rolling pin directions:

1. Put the soft butter to a large bowl.
2. Add sugar and flour to butter and mix together with a large spoon.
3. Form into a ball and wrap in plastic or cling wrap and put into the fridge for 30 minutes.
4. After 30 minutes, the butter should have slightly hardened making your shortbread dough ball a bit harder. Place it on a lightly floured surface.
5. Roll your dough out with the regular rolling pin to about 1/4 inch thickness. If you doubled or tripled this batch, you may have to do this in stages, rolling bits at a time.
6. Cover your embossed rolling pin with a generous amount of flour, and lightly shake any excess off.
7. Very gently, roll your pattern on top of your already rolled shortbread dough. You will only get one chance to do this as you can't roll the dough a second time. You may want to try a few test pieces out first to get the hang of it.
8. Cut your shapes out of the dough and lift them gently out with a spatula and place gently onto your parchment-lined baking sheets.
9. Once your pan is full, place pan of cookies into the fridge. This is what will help keep your embossed patterns on the cookie dough! Keep them in the fridge for 1 hour and just before you are going to take them out, preheat the oven to 300F. Pull the cookies out of the fridge and place them into the oven for 30-35 minutes.

Let cookies completely cool before eating, and you can keep them in a box or tin on the counter or can keep them in the freezer for several months.

Here are some tips for getting those embossed cookies perfect:

Chill your dough

There are several reasons why you will want to chill your dough if you are using an embossed rolling pin:

1. It hardens the butter creating a density in the dough that will allow your regular rolling pin to roll it out with more control
2. It will make it easier to leave an imprint with your embossed rolling pin
3. You will have less chance of dough being picked up by the intricate design of the embossed rolling pin
4. The cookies will hold together better when transferring them to the baking sheet

Chill your cookies before putting them in the oven

This is the most important tip you will hear, and here is why: Chilling the actual cookies will slow down the cooking process slightly, and will slow your dough from puffing up or rising at all during the cooking process, maintaining your embossed rolling pin pattern

Only use all purpose flour when making embossed cookies

Using all purpose flour will decrease your chance of the dough rising unintentionally while in the oven. Other flours have additives that help the cooking process depending on what you are making.

Keep it plain and keep it simple with all purpose flour for best cookie results.

If your cookie dough seems too crumbly or too dry:

Add a little bit of soft butter and work it in by hand. You can add more and more butter to get the consistency you want, but just do it a bit at a time. It will be difficult to incorporate the butter into the already made dough, so be patient with it, and make notes in your recipe for next time.

Here are some reasons why your dough may be dry or crumbly:

• You may be living somewhere drier that requires slightly more of the wet ingredients to get perfect dough
• You may have overworked the dough. Try to roll out the dough onto your floured surface once, because every time you re-do this step, the dough picks up more and more flour drying it out more each time.

If your embossed rolling pin pattern is not showing on your cookies:

This is a tricky process that takes some practice. Here are some tips to make sure your embossed patterns come out perfectly:

1. Make sure your dough is chilled before working with the rolling pins
2. Make sure you only use all-purpose flour in your cookie ingredients
3. Use an embossed rolling pin with a deep enough pattern
4. Make sure your flour is all purpose. If it is not, it may have rising ingredients, which will rise your dough past the embossed patterns
5. Chill your cookies before they head into the oven

What else can you use embossed rolling pins on?

You can use embossed rolling pins in a variety of ways to get beautiful patterns, including:

• For play dough patterns for your kids
• Use embossed rolling pins on salt dough for handmade Christmas ornaments
• Roll embossed rolling pins in paint for craft fun! If you are doing this, you may want to buy a few to dedicate just to crafts like this
• For beautiful pie shells
• For different holiday cookies (yes, there are Halloween embossed rolling pin patterns, Valentine's day embossed rolling pin patterns and more!)
• For handmade pet treats

Or, come up with your own way to use embossed rolling pins!

We hope you enjoyed this article showing you how to make the perfect cookie dough to use with embossed rolling pins. Please bookmark this page or save a pin! We would appreciate that.

Happy baking!

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