I think I’m about ready for Spring to come and stay.

I picked up a habit a few years ago of baking for the approach of a ‘season,’ meaning even if the weather isn’t necessarily matching what I want it to be at the time, I bake for it in anticipation of its arrival.

For instance, when I baked today’s recipe, the weather was nowhere near resembling Spring. But lo and behold, today as I type this post, it’s 73 degrees fahrenheit and sunny where I am. Pretty neat.

A cookie press can be a really cool gadget to keep in your baking toolkit so long as you have the right one and are using the right cookie recipe. In case you guys were curious, this is the one that I use, and after 3+ years, it’s never given me any issues (unlike some other brands. Also, they didn’t pay me to say that, I’m just spreading the word out of appreciation for the product).

So far as the right cookie recipe, you want to stick with standard, no frills or mix-in dough (sans-baking soda) that deliver a crisp butter cookie with a short crumb. Simplicity is your best friend best here.

Aren’t these pretty? The dough comes together in minutes, and the vanilla and cardamom work really well together to give the cookie a nice balance between sweet and spice. These are perfect alongside tea and coffee.

Pro-tip: Don’t forget to freeze your baking sheets before using the cookie press, it makes all the difference in achieving a neat and sharply designed cookie!

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Cardamom Butter Cookies

Recipe Adapted from TeaTime Magazine

Ingredients

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1¼ cups confectioners’ sugar
  • 1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
  • 2 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste or extract
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons ground cardamom
  • ½ teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit., Place about 3 baking sheets in the freezer to chill thoroughly.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter, sugar, and lemon zest at low speed until combined. Increase speed to medium, and beat until creamy, 2 to 3 minutes, stopping to scrape down sides of bowl.

Gradually add eggs, beating until well combined after each addition and scraping down sides as needed. Add vanilla paste, beating until incorporated.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cardamom, and salt. With mixer at low speed, gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating until combined. (Dough will be quite thick.)

Place chilled dough into your cookie press. Press dough out onto ungreased and unlined baking sheets.

Bake until cookies are set and lightly golden, 10 to 12 minutes, rotating pans once. Let cool on pans for 2 minutes. Transfer to wire racks. Let cool completely.

Note: no one oven is the same, & different baking sheets bake cookies differently. Keeping this in mind, I will ALWAYS test bake one cookie before baking entire sheets of the whole batch, just to get a good idea of how long they should be in the oven and if I need to adjust the way I’ve cut, rolled them out, etc. I highly recommend that you do the same.)

Sharing at Fiesta Friday #429.

8 thoughts on “Cardamom Butter Cookies

  1. This is Ramadan – sugar festival pastries 🥧 of course, similarity of tastes is the same, thank you very much for sharing!!! but looks very good..

    1. Thanks Dorothy, my grandmother was the same with making spritz cookies at Christmas. She gave me her old press a few years ago 😉

  2. So cute. You should try naan khatai which are Indian shortbread like cookies. I never had great results with my press, probably due to the recipe.

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