Steps of the Christmas Cookie Recipe with Cinnamon without Butter

• Let’s start preparing the Christmas Cookies by placing the wooden board, a large bowl with high edges, the hand whisk, and all the necessary ingredients for the preparation of the shortcrust pastry without butter with cinnamon on the work surface. Weigh all ingredients, sift the flour, and add about four grams of baking powder to it.

  Break the two eggs, at room temperature, into two small bowls. We will use one egg whole, while for the other, we will only use the yolk for now, setting aside the white to prepare the royal icing with my perfect recipe! Weigh the sugar and the amount of vegetable oil. Take the trays and place parchment paper inside them. Keep the rolling pin, in my case silicone, and two sheets aside to roll out the shortcrust later. Of course, keep the Christmas cutters handy. Now you have all the ingredients and tools necessary to prepare the super fragrant Christmas shortbread cookies.

  Pour the whole egg and yolk into the bowl and with the hand whisk, or a fork if you prefer, start working until you get a nice foam. In the video recipe you find above or on the YouTube channel of Le Ricette di Bea (to which I recommend and invite you to subscribe by clicking here) you can clearly see how the egg foam should be. Then add the vegetable oil and the cinnamon. The amount of cinnamon is up to taste, if you like it a lot and want to smell the intense aroma, you need to add a good amount, if you want a delicate effect like mine, just do two or three sprinkles. Continue working, it should almost resemble a zabaglione. Then add the amount of white sugar and continue working with the hand whisk.

  Now with the help of a spoon, gradually start adding the all-purpose flour with the baking powder. Not all at once, please, as we will initially continue working the dough with the hand whisk. When it becomes difficult to knead with it, it will be a signal that you should knead by hand. If you prefer, you can do it in the bowl as I did or transfer everything onto the lightly floured wooden board and continue by hand to create a nice sticky and smooth ball of shortcrust. Since this shortcrust does not need to rest, we are ready to roll it out with the help of a rolling pin and parchment paper sheets.

  The Trick: using parchment paper sheets prevents the shortcrust from sticking to the wooden board and also prevents it from rolling around the rolling pin, even if it’s silicone.

  Once the shortcrust pastry is rolled out, it’s time to preheat the oven to 356 degrees Fahrenheit with the static mode, please.

  

• Finally, the fun part of the Christmas Cookie Recipe with Cinnamon. Take the Christmas cutters and start shaping Snowmen, Stars, Bells, Gingerbread, Angels, Christmas Trees and Hearts. If you also have the Santa’s House, the Stocking, the Candy Cane, Shooting Stars, Reindeer, Gift Boxes, go wild with the shapes to give to your Cinnamon Christmas Cookies with this soft and delicious shortcrust pastry without butter!

  Then arrange the shortcrust cookies on the trays, leaving them well spaced apart. Keep in mind that I baked four batches with about 6 or 5 cookies per tray. So as soon as the oven reaches temperature, we can start baking the Christmas shortbread cookies. In my old and rickety oven, I can bake one tray at a time in the middle, which is why I just wrote that I completed the recipe after four bakes of cookies. If your oven allows you to bake optimally on more levels, you can do so without worry.

  The baking of the Christmas Cookies Shortcrust Pastry Recipe without Butter with Cinnamon is 15 minutes for the first batch and then goes down to around 13 to 14 minutes. You will see that fewer minutes of baking are necessary as the oven reaches the correct temperature of 356 degrees.

  

• Take a bowl, place near you the electric whisk, a piping bag, a spoon, and a spatula. Now take the egg white we set aside in the small bowl. Pour it into the bowl with high edges and turn on the electric whisk at maximum power. As always, the egg must be at room temperature. Don’t rush through this step, which you can clearly see in the video recipe above. Patience and electric whisk, you will have a perfectly stiff egg white that does not drip or fall from the bowl even if you flip it over.

  The Trick: sprinkle with a pinch of salt which will only serve to whip the egg white perfectly. You’ll be surprised at what a little pinch of salt can do.

  Once the egg white is whipped, it’s time to add the lemon juice. Mix it with the whisk at maximum power. Now start adding the powdered sugar. Not all at once, even here, spoon by spoon, to have control over the lumps and consistency of the royal icing. Up to 250 grams of powdered sugar may be needed, this varies based on the humidity of the environment, the temperature of the egg white during processing with the electric whisk.

  Once the royal icing is smooth and homogeneous, transfer it to the piping bag with the help of a spoon first and then the spatula or marisa. Choose a fine and very small tip, I chose a disposable piping bag where I inserted the fine tip provided. My stubbornness mixed with little familiarity with decorations exceeded absurd levels with this recipe, unfortunately. So as I tell you in the video, I hope you are better than me at decorations and especially more patient.

  Once the cookies are baked and the royal icing is ready, we are ready for the final decoration of our cinnamon Christmas cookies. Arrange them all on the wooden board, where we have removed excess flour, to cool at room temperature and no longer receive heat from the tray. I eventually opted for simple outline lines for the cookies and tried to make eyes, hands, and shoes for the little snowmen that seem the cutest. As you can see from the photo that follows the others, they didn’t turn out so well, there’s a snowman that looks like a witch and an angel that looks like a little ghost, I’m sure you’ll do better than me, I’m sure. While everyone in kindergarten was in line to draw, I was out in the yard playing ball, I’m more than certain!

  Having said that and joking aside, let’s let the royal icing set for decoration of the cookies before transferring them to plates. I delivered the Christmas cookies to Grandma Sandra‘s house and Aunt Laura‘s house where I knew I would find all the nephews, from the twins to the older ones. Everyone appreciated and approved my Christmas Cookies with Cinnamon Shortcrust. Especially Claudia who has already asked for the recipe twice!

  I can only wish you, as always, a good appetite, I look forward to seeing you here on the Le Ricette di Bea blog with many other easy, quick, economical, and most importantly delicious recipes like this one! By category, you will find from appetizers to desserts and also the sections dedicated to Holidays, as in this case for Christmas!