Maple walnut shortbread cookies are an easy slice and bake cookie recipe for holiday baking and delicious everyday snacking!
you won’t find these maple walnut shortbread cookie in the supermarket cookie aisle.Â
Both maple and walnuts have a complex, lingering flavor that makes these cookies special. I love love LOVE cooking with maple, I even have a whole Pinterest board dedicated to it, and this flavor combination is a classic. In this recipe I use maple sugar, maple extract, and maple syrup for a triple maple threat. Maple sugar is sugar made from maple tree sap in the same way white sugar is made from sugar cane. Find it in natural food stores, and you can always buy it from Amazon, here. You can substitute brown sugar if you need to.
more maple walnut recipes to try
But it’s not all about the flavor ~ my basic slice and bake shortbread cookies have such a great melt in your mouth texture, whether you eat them warm from the oven, or let them cool.
why gives shortbread that melt in your mouth texture?
- It’s a really interesting question, and it has to do with chemistry! Shortbread cookie dough doesn’t contain any liquid ingredients like you normally find in cookie recipes, so they don’t rise, and the formation of gluten is retarded.
- The addition of cornstarch (which is gluten free) reduces the total amount of gluten in the recipe which further tenderizes the shortbread.
- Shortbread cookies can be soft or crisp, depending on how thick they are and how long you cook them, but they will never be chewy.
- Note: these cookies are not gluten free, although you can make them with a good gluten free baking mix.
I love an easy make-ahead cookie recipe and it doesn’t get much easier than this.Â
Mix up the dough and roll it into a log. Chill until firm and then slice it up and bake. The log of dough can sit for up to a week in your refrigerator. Up to a year in the freezer.
3 tips for perfect maple walnut shortbread cookies
These three tips go a long way toward eliminating baking fails during the busy holiday season.
- Â Use good quality butter (stock up when it goes on sale and freeze it) don’t go for the cheapo brand, it contains more water, for one thing, and will affect the texture of your cookies.
- Â I use a heavy duty USA baking sheet for all my cookie recipes, the pan bakes evenly and never warps.
- Â I keep an inexpensive oven thermometer in my oven at all times so I know exactly what the temperature is. It has a convenient hook on the top so you can hang it from the oven rack ~ mine just lives there.
make these maple walnut cookies your own
- You can use another nut, like pecans, if you don’t love walnuts.
- These shortbread cookies are nice without the frosting too. Have them with a cup of tea.
- If you have a leaf cookie cutter you can roll out the dough (form it into a disk, wrap, and chill first) and make cute maple leaf cookies.
- Did you know you can actually make your own maple sugar? There’s a recipe here, and all you need is maple syrup.
more maple please!
- Maple Frangipane Pecan Pie
- Salted Maple Caramel Sauce
- Maple Glazed Oatmeal Cookies
- Maple Cranberry Butter in 15 minutes!
- Baked Brie with Apples, Pecans, & Maple Syrup
- Maple Glazed Pumpkin Muffins
Maple Walnut Shortbread Cookies
Maple walnut shortbread cookies are an easy slice and bake cookie recipe for holiday baking and delicious everyday snacking!
Servings: 21 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1/2 cup maple sugar, (substitute light brown or granulated if you like.)
- 1/2 tsp pure maple extract, (if you can't find, use almond extract.)
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 1 cup finely chopped walnuts plus more for topping
frosting
- 1 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted
- about 5 Tbsp pure maple syrup, (the real thing please, not imitation!)
Instructions
- Cream the butter and the sugar together.
- Beat in the extract.
- Whisk together the flour and cornstarch. Blend them into the butter and sugar, until it forms a dough.
- Stir in the walnuts and make sure you get them well distributed in the dough.
- Turn the dough out onto a sheet of plastic wrap or parchment paper and form it into a log, about 9 or 10 inches long. Wrap it in the plastic and smooth it into a uniform smooth shape, twisting the ends to secure.
- Refrigerate the dough for at least 3 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 350F
- Slice the dough into 1/4 – 1/3 inch slices and place on a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet. Thinner slices will bake up crispier, and thicker ones will be more buttery and soft.
- Bake for about 12 minutes. The cookies will still be pale and soft, but will firm up as they cool.
- Cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet, then cool completely on a rack.
- Make the frosting by whisking the sugar with enough maple syrup to form a spreadable frosting. If it is too thick, add a bit more syrup, and if it becomes too think add more sugar. Spread a layer on each cooled cookie and dust with crushed walnuts. The frosting will harden as it dries.
Nutrition
Serving: 1 cookie · Calories: 200 kcal · Carbohydrates: 21 g · Protein: 2 g · Fat: 13 g · Saturated Fat: 6 g · Polyunsaturated Fat: 3 g · Monounsaturated Fat: 3 g · Trans Fat: 0.4 g · Cholesterol: 23 mg · Sodium: 2 mg · Potassium: 54 mg · Fiber: 1 g · Sugar: 11 g · Vitamin A: 271 IU · Vitamin C: 0.1 mg · Calcium: 15 mg · Iron: 1 mg
Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. This information comes from online calculators. Although The View from Great Island attempts to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures are only estimates.
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Do these cookies spread at all when baked? I have some chilling now and want to make sure I space them out right!
Shortbread does not spread, but still I space them an inch or two apart for even cooking.
I made these last Christmas for a friend who is obsessed with maple walnut ice cream. These cookies were a big hit with everyone so much so that tomorrow a few of us ladies are getting together and they requested these cookies. I remember icing part of the batch and coloring the icing red and green to make the cookies festive and left the rest without icing. These cookies are really very good. Will definitely be making them this holiday season too.
These look fabulous and I can tell they will taste out of this world! I love anything with maple in it. Would these work if you did them in a round pan and then cut them into wedges?
Yes, I did that and there’s a photo of them cut that way. If you want really sharp slices I would bake in a springform pan so you can remove the sides and slice into neat wedges. But you can also do it right from a regular round pan.
This is a winner! Thank you!
You can’t beat maple walnut ~ it’s one of my all time favorite combos!
Why is there no salt? I made the cookies as directed without frostings. I tastes rather like sand. I guess it would be great with 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
Feel free to use salted butter, that works too! And shortbread has a distinctive texture, it’s definitely different from a chewy cookie.
These cookies are fabulous! Officially my favorite cookie now. Thank you so much for the recipe!
So glad you love them!
Can I make these without walnuts?
Yes, you can substitute another nut, or leave them out.
Did you use English walnuts or Black walnuts?
Regular walnuts, not black.
How many cookies does this make? I don’t see anything for amounts.
It makes about 21 cookies Patty. I’m just switching to a new recipe plugin and the amounts didn’t transfer over well, so I have to do individually.
How do you make maple sugar from maple syrup?
I provide a link in the post Opal, but basically you heat maple syrup to a boil and boil it down, then briskly beat it until the sugar crystals form, here’s a link to the instructions: https://leitesculinaria.com/102175/recipes-how-to-make-maple-sugar.html
You can also fine maple sugar on Amazon