Bake These Boozy Hot Buttered Rum Shortbread Cookies

Sister Pie

Before Lisa Ludwinski opened Sister Pie’s brick-and-mortar bakery in Detroit in 2015, shortbread wasn’t really on her radar. She didn’t quite get the hype surrounding the simple, butter-based cookies—but that quickly changed when she began experimenting with ways to liven up the classic.

“There’s really a lot you can do once you have a basic shortbread recipe, so it’s a good one to have in your repertoire,” says Ludwinski. It turns out shortbread is a great “blank canvas” for adding all kinds of flavorings, from herbs to citrus to nuts and spices to liquor and liqueurs.

Ludwinski’s Hot Buttered Rum cocktail-inspired shortbread cookies have proved particularly popular at her bakeshop. The delicious confection calls for, of course, butter as well as classic baking spices like clove, cinnamon and nutmeg. A measure of dark or spiced rum adds depth. A thin layer of rum-infused icing tops each one.

“They’re definitely boozy; you really taste the rum in the icing, but then the clove spice is the second strongest flavor to me,” says Ludwinski. “It’s just a very warm tasting cookie. It just feels like you’re sitting by a fire reading a story and looking at wrapped presents or something.”

In the years since they debuted at Sister Pie, these spirited shortbreads have become one of Ludwinski’s signatures, even making an appearance in her book, Sister Pie: The Recipes & Stories Of A Big-Hearted Bakery In Detroit.

“People would be upset if we didn’t bring them back for the holidays,” says Ludwinski, who now considers herself a “shortbread queen.”

Here are Ludwinski’s tips for creating a perfectly boozy, buttery shortbread cookie.

Choose Your Butter Carefully

Like any shortbread, much of the flavor in Ludwinski’s cookies comes from the butter, so it’s incredibly important to use high-quality butter. She prefers an unsalted European-style butter, like the Irish Kerrygold, which has a higher fat content.

“Use a butter that you really like eating because that flavor is going to come through so much in such a simple cookie as a shortbread,” she says. “It’s really just flour, butter, sugar, salt and then the spice. I think that’s a major reason why people like our shortbread so much, because they’re really tasting that delicious butter.”

Beware of Overworking the Dough

One of the most important things to remember when making shortbread dough is not to overmix when it comes time to shape it into a log for slicing. Overworking the dough can give it a tough texture rather than the desired crumbly shortbread effect.

“A lot of times what I’ll do is make a loose log and then I’ll put it into the plastic wrap and continue to roll it in the plastic wrap until it really turns into like a smooth log that I can slice into later,” says Ludwinski.

Use Warm Icing

While you want the cookies to cool before you begin icing them, Ludwinski says the process is exponentially easier when the icing is a little bit warm—plus it will ensure the icing dries with a nice sheen. “If you made the icing the day before and put it in the fridge, warm it up over a double boiler,” she says. “Then you can dip the top of the cookie in, or you could take a little offset spatula and spread it on—that’s how they become really shiny and smooth on top.”

Make Now, Bake Later

Shortbread has a surprisingly impressive shelf life for a cookie, lasting for up to a week without becoming stale—that is if you can resist eating them for that long.

But if you want to make your shortbread in advance and ensure that it will taste freshly baked for your holiday guests, Ludwinski recommends throwing a log of the dough into the fridge a few days before you plan to bake them, or into the freezer a couple of weeks ahead.

“It’s best to slice them once they’ve had a really nice rest in the fridge,” she says. “That way the spice flavors will really kind of seep into the dough.”

Buttered Rum Shortbread

Makes 36 cookies

INGREDIENTS

Shortbread Dough

• 2.25 cups All-purpose flour
• .5 tsp Ground cinnamon
• .5 tsp Ground nutmeg
• .25 tsp Ground cloves
• .5 tsp Kosher salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) Unsalted butter, at room temperature
• .75 cup Powdered sugar
• 1 Tbsp Dark or spiced rum
• .5 tsp Pure vanilla extract

Rum Icing

• .75 cup Powdered sugar, plus more as needed
• 2 tsp Coconut oil, melted
• 2 tsp Dark or spiced rum
• 2 Tbsp Heavy cream, plus more as needed, at room temperature
• .25 tsp Kosher salt
• dash Ground cloves

DIRECTIONS

For the Cookie Dough

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Set aside.
2. Place the butter and powdered sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream on medium speed for about 3 minutes, until very smooth with no visible chunks of butter.
3. Use a silicone spatula to scrape down the bowl, then add the rum and vanilla, and mix until just incorporated. Add the flour mixture all at once and mix on low speed until completely incorporated. Remove the dough from the bowl and shape into a cylindrical log approximately one-and-a-half inches in diameter. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 40 minutes. You can mix and shape the dough up to 2 days in advance and store it in the refrigerator until 1 hour before you intend to roll out the dough. Alternatively, you may freeze the dough for up to 3 months, then let it thaw in the refrigerator overnight before proceeding with the recipe.
4. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. Remove the dough from the refrigerator, unwrap it, and place on a cutting board.
6. Using a sharp chef’s knife, slice the cookies about a quarter-inch thick. Carefully transfer them to the parchment-lined baking sheets.
7. Place the baking sheets in the oven and bake for 14 to 16 minutes, until the edges are just slightly golden.
8. Remove the baking sheets from the oven and transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool.

For the Icing

1. While cookies are cooling, in a medium bowl whisk together the powdered sugar, coconut oil, rum, cream, salt and cloves until very smooth. The texture should remind you of Elmer’s Glue. Yum!
2. If the icing seems a little dry, whisk in a bit more heavy cream. If it seems a little too wet, whisk in powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time.
3. Once the cookies have fully cooled, use a small offset spatula or knife to spread a very thin, even layer of icing across the tops of the cookies. It should be carefully smoothed, not gloppy. Return the cookies to the baking sheets to give the icing a chance to set up before serving. Store the iced cookies in an airtight container for up to a week.

Reprinted with permission from Sister Pie: The Recipes & Stories of a Big-Hearted Bakery in Detroit by Lisa Ludwinski, copyright (c) 2018. Published by Lorena Jones Books, a division of Penguin Random House, Inc.