Aunt Rosemary’s Shortbread Cookies

On Sibling Day (a day that my siblings and I spend together, just the four of us, no spouses or kids), we visited my aunt and uncle. My aunt and cousin were making cookies for a wedding—one being shortbread. I love shortbread and after I bit into it, I wanted the recipe.

Aunt Rosemary’s Shortbread Cookies
1 c. butter, softened
½ c. packed brown sugar
½ tsp apple pie spice or pumpkin pie spice
1/8 tsp salt
2 ¼ c flour
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat butter on medium speed for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar, spice, salt. Beat until combined. Beat in flour, stir in remainder. Shape into 1 inch balls.
Flatten with cookie stamp, or bottom of flour coated glass.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until light brown.
Makes 36 cookies.


I had a terracotta cookie stamp that my little sister Ruthie gave me. Now was my chance to use it and make my cookies a little fancy. My cousin told me they used a glass, but there was a pattern on the bottom of the glass and it looked cool having this imprint on the cookie. As you may see, my cookies were too small to catch the entire design of the stamp.

Since I had never used a cookie stamp before, I just pushed down on it. That didn’t work, all the dough stuck to it. I cleaned it all off and this time dipped it in flour first. It still stuck. I thought well maybe it’s supposed to be wet, so I ran the terracotta stamp under the water. Stamped the dough and it stuck again. I tried oiling it and although that worked a little better, it continued to stick. I couldn’t find much on the Internet other than using flour, so I floured heavily. That worked. But I had to do it each time I pressed the dough. My dough was soft, so it may have worked better with a harder type dough.

I smartened up and flattened the balls down first before I pressed it with the cookie stamp so I wouldn’t have to press as hard and that seemed to work better.

These cookies were tasty and easy to make, if you didn’t stamp them. I drizzled chocolate over some that I didn’t stamp, but I prefer mine plain.