Butter Shortbread Cookies (3-Ingredients)
- By Amy Dong
- Updated Oct. 10, 2026
These are my popular easy 3-ingredient shortbread cookies made with just butter, brown sugar, and flour. No eggs and no messy powdered sugar. These easy shortbread cookies bake up tender, rich, and melt-in-your-mouth buttery.
In This Article
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Amy’s Notes
- 3 Ingredients: Your pantry may already be stocked with flour, butter, and brown sugar.
- Melt-in-Your-Mouth: Your family and friends will absolutely adore these melt-in-your-mouth shortbread cookies.
- Perfect Gifts That Stay Fresh: These are the perfect holiday cookies for gifting. These keep well, so you can even ship them to friends and family.
- Use Any Colors and Shapes: You can change out the sprinkles and switch up the shapes to your heart’s content – for any occasion throughout the year.
- Make-Ahead Dough: Make the dough several weeks in advance.
- Freezes Beautifully: Baked cookies freeze beautifully up to several weeks.
What is Scottish Shortbread?
Scottish shortbread cookies are the most simple cookies you can make during Christmas season and beyond. They’re called “short” because of the traditional ratio of the 1:2 ratio of sugar to butter, providing a higher fat content to the dough. This ratio is what yields a soft, buttery crumb that is literally melt-in-your-mouth amazing.
Scottish shortbread cookies use only flour, sugar, and butter, and are famous for their ultra-buttery, tender texture as well as their extraordinary flavor. They’re the perfect canvas for rolling and slicing, shaping with cookie cutters, and decorating any which way you’d like.
Only 3 Ingredients
These buttery, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread cookies contain only 3 simple, pure ingredients and nothing else. No fillers, no additives, nothing artificial at all.
- Salted Butter – you’ll want to keep the butter cold. No need to soften or melt the butter. No extra salt is needed. However, if you use unsalted butter, you’ll want to add 1/4 tsp table salt.
- Light Brown Sugar – the tip for brown sugar is to use fresh brown sugar that has not lost any of its moisture from sitting in the pantry too long. Many shortbread recipes use white sugar or powdered sugar, but light brown sugar is the secret to a deliciously caramelized flavor.
- All Purpose Flour – simple, all-purpose flour will do just fine for this easy recipe.
Variations and Substitutions
These traditional shortbread cookies are perfect, but if you like to tinker with variations, here are a few suggestions:
- Butter: If you only have unsalted butter, go ahead and use that – just add 1/4 tsp fine table salt to the dough mixture.
- Granulated Sugar: Brown sugar is best, as it provides a richer, caramelized flavor. If you prefer, you can use granulated sugar. This will give you a lighter colored, slightly crisper cookie.
- Shapes: Change up the shapes! You can cut these cookies into 3×1″ traditional shortbread rectangle shapes and poke decorative holes with a fork. You can also make cookie rounds, like we do with 4-Ingredient Pecan Sandies.
- Caramel: Transform this traditional shortbread recipe into caramel shortbread cookies!
- Chocolate: Drizzle or dip these cookies with chocolate, for an amazing treat. See our Shortbread Cookies with Chocolate.
Step-By-Step Recipe Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, add cold butter slices and brown sugar. Cream until mixture has a pasty texture. Scrape down sides and paddle. Add only 3 1/2 cups of the flour and mix on medium-low speed just until combined.
- On a large board, sprinkle 1/2 cup flour to keep dough from sticking to the board. Knead dough by hand, adding only as much of the remaining 1/2 cup flour as needed to make a soft dough, while continuing to knead.
- Divide dough into 3 balls, and flatten them into discs. Wrap tightly with cling wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes or until firm enough to roll and cut shapes.
- Take out one of dough discs and place on a lightly floured surface. Toll it out to about 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into 3×1 rectangular strips, triangles, or use cookie cutters (I use 1-2″ cookie cutters). Chill and bake until golden brown, 15-20 minutes.
*For complete list of ingredients and instructions, see recipe card below.
Make Ahead, Freeze, or Gift
These 3-ingredient buttery shortbread cookies make my top 3 favorite holiday cookies every single year. Not only are they easy to make and taste magnificent, they’re perfect for gifting:
- These cookies keep nicely for days once they’re baked, making them a tasty edible gift.
- The dough and baked cookies both freeze beautifully in an airtight container for several weeks.
- I often use half of the dough and freeze the other half for cookie emergencies that inevitably pop up.
- Love crisp yet tender cookies? You’ll adore these Russian tea cakes!
Video: Watch Me Make This Recipe
Butter Shortbread Cookies (3-Ingredients)
Ingredients
- 2 cups salted butter, cold, sliced into 1/2" pieces
- 1 cup light brown sugar, tightly packed
- 4 ½ cups all purpose flour, divided
- Sprinkles, optional
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, add cold butter slices and brown sugar. Using paddle attachment on medium-high speed, cream until mixture is combined and has a pasty texture. Scrape down sides and paddle.
- Add only 3 1/2 cups of the flour and mix on medium-low speed just until combined; do not over-mix.
- On a large board, sprinkle 1/2 cup flour to keep dough from sticking to the board. Use rubber spatula to transfer dough to the board.
- Knead dough by hand, adding only as much of the remaining 1/2 cup flour as needed to make a soft dough, while continuing to knead. The dough should end up soft and pliable, similar to play-dough, not sticky. You may not end up using all the flour; stop adding flour as soon as your dough resembles soft play dough.
- Gently work in desired amount of sprinkles, if using them.
- Divide dough into 3 balls, and flatten them into discs. Wrap tightly with cling wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes or until firm enough to roll and cut shapes.
- Meanwhile, preheat oven to 325°F, with rack on lower middle position. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats; set aside.
- Take out one of dough discs and roll it out to about 1/2 inch thickness – lightly flour board if needed. Either cut into 3×1 rectangular strips, triangles, or use 1-2" diameter cookie cutters.
- Place cookies 2 inches apart on baking sheet. Poke cookies with fork on top for a design, if not using sprinkles. Place entire baking sheet in fridge for 15 minutes.
- Bake chilled cookies for 15-20 minutes, or until edges are golden brown. For smaller cookies, bake closer to 15 minutes; bake longer for larger shapes. Repeat with the remaining dough, working in batches so dough stays chilled.
- Cool completely on wire rack before serving. Cookies keep very when sealed airtight, at room temp.
Equipment
- Cooling Racks, Stackable
Notes
- Tip: 2 cups butter = 4 sticks butter.
- Many shortbread recipes use granulated or confectioner’s sugar, but light brown sugar is the secret to a wonderfully caramelized flavor.
- If you need to use unsalted butter, add 1/4 tsp fine table salt to the dough.
- I use 1-2″ cookie cutters, but feel free to use your favorite shapes, as long as the dough is rolled out to 1/2″ thick.
- If you have unbaked cookies waiting to go into the oven, place them in the fridge to keep cold until it’s their turn to bake.
- Unbaked dough can be frozen for up to 2 months. Wrap completely airtight; defrost dough when ready to roll/cut.
- These cookies are part of our delicious Cookie Recipes Collection.
Nutrition (per serving)
Frequently Asked Questions
The main difference in the two types of cookies is the amount of sugar to butter ratio. Butter cookies generally contain more sugar and are baked a higher temperatures. Shortbread cookies contain a higher fat content, which yields a melt-in-your-mouth texture.
Texture is the main difference. Scottish shortbread recipes uses flour, butter, sugar and optional salt. Regular shortbread often incorporates leavening agents like baking soda or baking powder.
Shortbread is a wonderful balance of tender and slightly crisp textures, it’s a little of both. There will be a light crunch, followed by a wonderful melt-in-your-mouth texture.
It’s important that shortbread be made with 100% pure, quality butter. It’s the high butter content that makes these shortbread cookies so incredible.
Chilled dough allows butter to re-solidify and helps the cookies keep their shape during baking, preventing them from spreading too much.
Shortbread cookie dough freezes well. Divide dough into 3 even portions, wrap them airtight, and freeze for up to 1 month. Defrost desired amount of dough in the fridge a the night before and let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes prior to rolling out.
Baked shortbread cookies freeze beautifully. Wrap them airtight and freeze for up to 1 month.
The culprit is usually too much flour, as flour needs to be measured precisely. Use the scoop and level method for measuring flour; never pack it down.
“Short” is an old baking word for tender and crumbly. All the butter coats the flour and keeps gluten strands short, so you get that melt-in-your-mouth texture instead of a chewy one. It’s called bread because the original Scottish versions came from leftover bread dough.
Our easy shortbread cookies do not need any eggs! It’s a simple 3-ingredient shortbread recipe that is fail-proof every time.
More to Bake and Eat
- Forever Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies – these seriously stay chewy for days on end, if you can keep them around that long.
- Salted Caramel Cookies – super easy salted caramel cookies are yours, with this simple recipe.
- Brown Sugar Cookies, Soft and Chewy – these are our favorite year-round cookies to bake and eat. They’re the perfect canvas for any add-ins you like.
- Thick, Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies – all the oatmeal lovers in the house will adore these satisfying oatmeal raisin cookies.
- Perfect Cut-out Sugar Cookies – these keep their shape and actually taste amazing – no bland sugar cookies here!