72 short bread recipes

Lemon roll-out cookies with sour cream, lemon zest and lemon extract, brushed with fresh lemon juice before baking. Tender citrus shortbread for tea trays and gift tins.

Buttery shortbread cookie bars packed with chopped walnuts and a thick layer of strawberry jam baked between two golden crusts. Rich, sweet, and utterly impossible to eat just one.

Hot cinnamon apple parfait layers warm spiced apples and golden raisins with crushed shortbread crumbs and vanilla ice cream. Comfort dessert that lands somewhere between apple crisp and sundae.

Layer cookies with a buttery shortbread base topped with a crisp brown sugar meringue and chopped nuts. The egg yolks go in the bottom layer, the whites become the chewy topping.

Buttery pecan shortbread cookie balls dipped in vanilla frosting and rolled in tinted coconut. Melt-in-your-mouth tender, baked low and slow, and perfect for holiday cookie exchanges. Makes 48.

Orange sugar-crusted meltaway cookies with chocolate chips and chopped nuts, dipped in fresh orange juice and rolled in sugar to form a delicate citrus-sugar shell. A bright, buttery shortbread-style holiday cookie.

Butter almond classic cookies are tender almond crescents: a buttery shortbread scented with almond extract, studded with chopped almonds, and rolled in powdered sugar. The melt-in-your-mouth cookie every holiday tin needs.

Pecan shortbread cookies shaped into little ovals and rolled in powdered sugar. Only 4 ingredients, no eggs, mixed by hand, and they melt in your mouth. A Mexican wedding cookie cousin that makes 4 dozen.