Vanilla Bean Shortbread Cookies are a simple, buttery, and utterly delicious cookie perfect for afternoon tea, an after school snack, or any occasion.
vanilla bean shortbread cookies are subtle but delicious!
If you’re looking for a soft spoken, elegant cookie to pair with coffee or tea, look no further than vanilla bean shortbread cookies. These demure cookies speak in the hushed tones of floral vanilla bean, they quietly crunch and then melt away in your mouth. After you eat one or two, you’ll wonder why you’d ever need anything else in a cookie.
5 simple ingredients for vanilla shortbread
- butter ~ I use unsalted
- sugar ~ confectioner’s or granulated
- flour ~ all purpose
- vanilla bean
- vanilla extract
easy step by step for making vanilla bean shortbread dough
- Cream the butter and sugar along with the vanilla and vanilla bean seeds. This can be done by hand, or with electric beaters, or in a stand mixer.
- Blend in the flour until a soft crumbly dough comes together.
- You can chill the dough in a disk for cut-out cookies, or in a log form for slice and bake cookies.
more shortbread please
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- How to Make Pansy Topped Shortbread Cookies
- Sparkly Strawberry Shortbread Cookies
- Chocolate Dipped Orange Shortbread Cookies
- Lilac Sugar Shortbread
- Butter Pecan Shortbread
Vanilla Bean Shortbread Tea Cookies
Vanilla Bean Shortbread Cookies are a simple, buttery, and utterly delicious cookie perfect for afternoon tea, an after school snack, or any occasion.
Servings: 24 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
- seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean, or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 2 cups all purpose flour
Instructions
- Set oven to 350F.
- Cream the sugar and butter together with the vanilla and the vanilla bean seeds. Blend in the flour. Keep stirring until the dough comes together.
- Turn the soft dough out onto a floured surface and for into two disks, like for pie dough. Wrap the disks in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about an hour.
- Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about 1/4 inch thick and cut out the cookies. Place them on a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet.
- Put the baking sheet in the refrigerator while you clean up.
- Bake the cookies for about 13 minutes until firm.
- Cool on a rack.
Nutrition
Calories: 117 kcal ยท Carbohydrates: 11 g ยท Protein: 1 g ยท Fat: 8 g ยท Saturated Fat: 5 g ยท Trans Fat: 1 g ยท Cholesterol: 20 mg ยท Sodium: 1 mg ยท Potassium: 14 mg ยท Fiber: 1 g ยท Sugar: 3 g ยท Vitamin A: 236 IU ยท Calcium: 4 mg ยท 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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I made these but I didn’t follow the order of ingredients. I am blaming the cute 7 month old baby at my feet. Instead I mixed everything all at once, mixed with my mixer and hoped for the best. They came out pretty good but a bit dry. Which, I know is the nature of shortbread but they just were not giving me the va-va-voom I was looking for. So I melted down semi-sweet chocolates and dipped the face of them and they are one of the most amazing cookies, ever! Also, I didn’t use a fancy cutter, I used Halloween cookie cutters instead and they have morphed into divine Autumn treats.
Sounds wonderful Jennifer — I hope you gave the 7 month old a taste ๐
These are the best cookies I’ve ever made! I love how light and airy the dough is. My kitchen smells amazing now! And the cookies came out perfectly and stayed delicious for the week that we were able to not eat them all. ๐ Perfection!
I so wanted these to work. They so did not. I double-checked the ingredients and measurements. Everything was in order, but I ended up with a buttery flat mess on the baking sheet. We’re crumbling it up to go over ice cream, so we’re calling it a ‘reinterpretation’ but something went very wrong somewhere.
Hi.. after baking a few years, I realized that the brand of butter matters. If at room temperature it is hard to get off the paper, it has too much liquid. I use Land of Lakes every time. Also if your butter is too cold it won’t work properly either..
Great point Kate! I’m a Land of Lakes user too, and when I buy cheaper brands I can always tell the difference.
Do you recommend using both vanilla bean and vanilla bean paste? I’ve never used the paste and am worried I would overload them with using scraped seeds as well.
A lot of people will skip the vanilla bean, so the suggestion is there for that reason. I agree that the bean and the paste together might be overkill…but you never know…;)
Where do you buy vanilla beans for this recipe?
I usually just buy my beans at the grocery store, Trish. But I recommend Olive Nation or Beanilla, which are online suppliers,
I made the Vanilla Bean short bread today and they are delicious,I added some grated NUTMEG,the short bread cookies are buttery crisp the will go great with Tea,Coffee or cold glass f milk, I will triple the recipe for the Holidays.
I love the idea of adding the nutmeg ๐
Where is the print icon please? Ruth Bethune
Sorry Ruth, my older recipes don’t have the printable recipe plugin, I’m trying to convert them all over to it, slowly!
i’ve never heard a cookie described as demure–i like it. ๐
I love shortbread. Vanilla bean sounds perfectly fabulous. They are simple and fantastic all in one bite, arent they? Even sitting next to the truffles, I would go for the shortbread… However, I can’t say the same for the cake. I have a bit of a ‘thing’ with cake. haha
I’m always happy to have a delicate shortbread recipe on file – it’s something everyone loves and such a handy thing to whip up if people are coming over. Love the flecks of vanilla bean, too… we brought back heaps of vanilla beans from our honeymoon in Bali that are waiting to be mixed into these!