Welcome to these tasty shortbread cookies. They look fabulous and are simple and quick to prepare. Perfect for Christmas! These cookies are buttery, vanilla-flavoured, with a hint of coconut. Highly recommended! Inspired by “Sister Anastasia’s Recipes” book.
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Ingredients for about 35 cookies
500 g plain flour
250 g chilled butter or margarine
2 tbsp vinegar (I used 10% spirit vinegar)
140 g icing sugar
3 tsp vanilla sugar
3 egg yolks
2 tsp baking powder
about 50-60g shredded coconut for sprinkling on the cookies
1–2 egg whites
about 220 g raspberry jam
Method
Sift flour, icing sugar, and baking powder into a bowl. Add vanilla sugar and mix briefly with a spoon.
Grate the chilled butter or margarine on a coarse grater, sprinkling with flour (see VIDEO). Add egg yolks and vinegar, and combine the dough using an electric mixer or by hand.
Then, lightly flour the work surface and rolling pin, and roll out the dough thinly. Cut out cookies and place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Leave small gaps between cookies. Cut holes in half of the cookies.
Brush the cookies with holes with egg white and sprinkle with shredded coconut (see VIDEO).
Place the cookies in a preheated oven. Bake at 160°C fan for about 15–16 minutes. For conventional top and bottom heat, bake at 180°C. On fan setting, you can bake two trays of cookies at once. After removing from the oven, let the cookies cool for about 10 minutes before transferring them from the tray.
Transfer the jam to a saucepan or pot and heat, stirring, until it boils. Reduce the heat to the lowest and cook for about 2 minutes (if preferred, you don’t need to cook the jam, but I find heated jam adheres better to the cookies). Remove from the heat and let it cool.
Spread jam on the whole cookies (without holes) and cover them with the cookies with holes, pressing lightly (see VIDEO).
Happy baking! :)
