Name: Carrot Cake Shortbread
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 2 sticks butter, softened; 1/2 cup packed brown sugar; 1/4 cup grated carrot; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract; 2 cups all-purpose flour; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1/4 teaspoon salt; 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar; 1/4 cup maple syrup; 1/2 cup finely chopped toasted walnuts, (optional), or sprinkles

Carrot Cake Shortbread

Carrot Cake Shortbread is a fun twist on a classic cookie, combining the flavors of carrot cake with the buttery, crumbly texture of traditional shortbread.

It's Spring Sweets Week and I'm particularly excited about this year's event because winter has felt real, real long here in New England and it's still sort of hanging around being a drag. I'm kicking things off with Carrot Cake shortbread from Taste of Home that I put a couple of spins on.

The ingredients are pretty simple: butter, brown sugar, carrots, flour, cinnamon, vanilla and salt. If you want to glaze the cookies you'll also need some maple syrup and confectioners sugar.

The key to a good shortbread is to not over mix the ingredients. Once the dough comes together you want to want to shape it into two disks and then refrigerate them for at least an hour. The dough needs to be firm enough to roll out.

I always do my rolling out on a pastry mat. It allows me to use less flour and it's so much easier to clean up. I rolled out the first disk and used a flower shaped cutter. You want to try and cut them out as close as you can to each other so that you don't have to re-roll the scraps out more than once. I also made two rectangular cookies, more on that later.

I baked the cookies on parchment for 14 minutes at 325 degrees. I let them sit on the sheet a minute or two and then moved them directly to a wire rack to cool completely. I then put that rack with the cookies on it over the parchment lined sheet and drizzled them with a maple glaze. If you'd like to make them into sandwich cookies, a cream cheese frosting would be nice.

For the other disk I went in a more heavily decorated direction. I rolled the dough out into a circle. It doesn't have to be perfect because the cracked edges add to the greenery effect. I used a pizza cutter and made 16 wedges. I spread them out on the baking sheet lined with parchment and baked them for 15 minutes at 325 degrees.

Once they cooled I made up a batch of Powdered Sugar Glaze. I added about a quarter of it to a piping bag and I decorated the rectangles from the first batch and then piped on the carrot tops. I sprinkled those with some green nonpareils. I colored the remaining frosting orange and filled the rest of the cookie in to look like carrots.

My intention was to pipe on a cute message for Easter but I just do not have the skills. There are premade letters available and also food grade markers but I couldn't get my hands on either in time for the post, so here's a mock up of what I wished they looked like!

Thanks so much to Heather for hosting #SpringSweetsWeek and to all of the other bloggers for sharing their recipes. Be sure to go and check out what they made using the links down below!

Carrot Cake Shortbread

Author: Jolene's Recipe Journal

Ingredients

For the shortbread:

2 sticks butter, softened
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup grated carrot
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

For the icing:

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup finely chopped toasted walnuts, (optional)

Instructions

In a large bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, 5-7 minutes. Beat in carrot and vanilla. In another bowl, whisk flour, cinnamon and salt; gradually beat into creamed mixture.
Divide dough in half. Shape each into a disk; wrap and refrigerate 1 hour or until firm enough to roll.
Preheat oven to 325°. On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion of dough to 1/4-in. thickness. Cut with a floured 1-3/4-in. scalloped or fluted round cookie cutter. Place 1 in. apart on greased baking sheets.
Bake until edges are light brown, 12-14 minutes. (For a crisper texture, bake cookies 13-15 minutes.) Remove from pans to wire racks to cool completely.
In a small bowl, mix confectioners' sugar and maple syrup until smooth; drizzle over cookies. Sprinkle with walnuts if desired. Let stand until set.