We all have our personalized list of holiday treats that must make an appearance each year. If they don’t it just doesn’t seem like the holidays are complete. When I’m at my parents’ house my list includes cream cheese filled cinnamon muffins. It’s a remarkably easy recipe prepped the night before and enjoyed hot and fresh from the oven every Christmas morning. They are a family favorite. One year one of my siblings suggested that we might not need to include those in our breakfast menu and I’m pretty sure they were cast out into the cold winter’s night to have a good long think about what they just said. Words have consequences. But it wasn’t all that bad really. We were in California after all.

Another thing that I tend to start craving in December is shortbread. It’s one of those cookies that is not necessarily a Christmas cookie but for whatever reason has been filed that way in brain. Holidays = a steady stream of shortbread.

This year though, when fall rolled in and I instantly went into hygge mode, shortbread became a daily necessity. Somehow it broke free from its holiday cage and became the MVP of my afternoons.

I love a good shortbread. It’s such a humble cookie with a remarkably humble ingredient list. When baked to perfection it has an almost powdery consistency that could read as dry but somehow doesn’t. Instead, they melt in your mouth and before you know it you’re reaching for another one before you’ve even finished chewing your first bite.

The humble ingredient list includes butter, powdered sugar, flour and salt. That’s it. Despite the all the shortages we had this year I always had those ingredients in my kitchen so shortbread fell into my baking rotation fairly conveniently. It’s also a fun dough to work with as you spend a few minutes kneading it and the smooth silky texture of the dough is very therapeutic.

Adding rosemary is not absolutely necessary but I do love how this savory herb plays with the butter and sugar. It almost has a pine-y essence to it so it makes a simple cookie fit right in with all the warm winter vibes filling our homes right now. If you are uncertain about the rosemary just make the dough without it and knead a bit in with smaller portion of the dough. Another perk of shortbread is that it is not overly sugary which means its the perfect cookie to carry us out of our Christmas cookie high into the new year. Because, despite what new years resolution culture says, the new year (in my opinion) should be celebrated with cookies and all the hygge we can muster.