Today’s 12 days of Christmas cookies post is dedicated to Canada and our trip to the Great White North back in June.
If you’ll recall warmer, drier days with me here for a minute, let’s return to Vancouver Island. Let’s forget about the little triathlon and focus on the Canadian fun. Paddleboarding, backpacking, eating maple cookies. Basically, all the best things. When we came home, I meant to attempt making maple cookies, but I never got around to it.
So here we are, 6 months later, with a maple shortbread cookie. And they are butter-licious.
(By the way, all the leaves on that tree outside our window were lost in the Portland Monsoon of 2015. So long, Autumn, for real this time.)
These maple shortbread cookies are mapley (mapled?), buttery, and just slightly cinnamony. They are somehow both crunchy and soft. And they pair perfectly with coffee or cinnamon tea. We both ended up dunking ours in our coffee. So if dunking is your game, perhaps bake them into a more dunkable shape.
As I prepared my dough, I imagined myself cutting out adorable Christmas trees, because surely I have a Christmas tree cookie cutter. After I rolled out my dough, I perused my box of cookie cutters, and while I obviously have a gnome cookie cutter (thanks to our “I’ll Be Gnome For Christmas” theme a few years ago), I was lacking in trees. I ended up with stars and mittens. The stars worked out pretty well, but without frosting, the mittens just kind of looked like weird blobs. So keep that in mind when picking your shapes.
I also recommend baking one shape on a pan at a time to ensure an even bake. My stars baked quite a bit faster than my mittens, so keep an eye out.
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 3 teaspoons pure maple syrup, divided
- 1½ cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup packed light brown sugar
- 3½ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- In a small bowl, stir together the granulated sugar and 2 teaspoons of the maple syrup. You've just made lazy-girl's maple sugar.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter, maple sugar, and light brown sugar. Mix in the flour, salt, cinnamon, and remaining 1 teaspoon of maple syrup. Mix until well-combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. The dough will come together into a large ball.
- On a lightly floured piece of wax paper, shape the dough into a disk. Wrap it in the paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silpat liner. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to ¼-inch thickness. Use cookie cutters to cut the dough into shapes, and place on the lined baking sheet. Baking times will vary depending on the size and shape of the cookies, but bake until lightly browned, 10-15 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, and then move to a wire rack to cool completely.
*Recipe adapted from these, which look about as adorably Canadian as one can imagine.
For more cookies from the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies archives, check out these links:
2014, Day 3: Fudgy Mocha Cookies
2013, Day 3: Peanut Butter Buckeye Pretzels (favorite, favorite, favorite)
2012, Day 3: Jamwiches
2011, Day 3: Loaded Oatmeal Cookies
2010, Day 3: Coconut Macaroons
Ready, set, bake!
-Ally
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