This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser, Mars Wrigley Confectionery US, LLC. All opinions are mine alone. #SweetnessToShare #CollectiveBias | Holiday Shortbread Cookie Bites Recipe
Treat Them to the Sweetest Gifts
Are you a fan of food gifts at Christmas time? I am! I much prefer to receive a sweet treat over a soon-to-be dust collecting nick-knack any day. So today I have a treat for you! This Holiday Shortbread Cookie Bites Recipe is so simple and perfect for packing into a Ball jar to give as a gift. I’ll even give you a FREE printable sheet of cute gift tags.
I’m making this easy for you; just hover over the items in the picture below and links will appear. Simply click on a link and you can go to a page to buy some of the items you’ll need for this recipe. Easy!
Gifts for Those in Need
In addition to giving gifts to our friends, family, and neighbors, I’m sure we all want to focus more on the gift of giving a donation to important charities.
Here’s some good news for you: For every purchase of M&M’S® Brand Chocolate Candies (9.4 oz or larger) at Walmart between 11/01/2017 and 12/25/2017, Mars Chocolate Inc.® will donate $5.00 to Feeding America® on behalf of its national network of food banks to secure and deliver one (1) half gallon of milk or more based on local markets. Maximum donation of $75,000.
Another great way to give back this holiday season is to join up with The Great American Milk Drive. I encourage you to visit this site and talk with your kids about how to support this cause.
Holiday Ingredients
These little shortbread cookies are so fun because they’re bite size. You can just pop one into your mouth for a small treat or grab a handful.
I picked up everything I needed for the Holiday Shortbread Cookie Bites Recipe and gift jars at Walmart, including M&M’S® Brand Holiday Milk Chocolate Candies and Ball® jars:
I also purchased a gallon of Great Value milk at Walmart because these little cookies go so well with a glass of ice cold milk!
Holiday Shortbread Cookie Bites Recipe
These cute little gems are awesome for a gift, but also for a Christmas cookie platter or a holiday party spread. Each buttery cookie is speckled with tiny little red, white, and green nonpareil sprinkles for a festive flair then topped with a little chocolate morsel for the purpose of holding in place one holiday M&M’S® candy. Perfection!
The dough is a very simple shortbread which makes for a buttery, crisp cookie.
I topped my holiday shortbread bites with milk chocolate M&M’S® but I also picked up a package of the M&M’S® White Peppermint to munch on as well.
Holiday Shortbread Cookie Bites Recipe
- Yield: 300 1x
Description
Holiday Shortbread Cookie Bites Recipe makes cute little cookies that make a wonderful gift or part of a holiday party spread. Add these to your list of top Christmas cookie recipes!
Ingredients
- 2/3 cups granulated sugar
- 1 cup butter, chilled
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons nonpareils sprinkles
- Approximately 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate baking morsels
- Approximately 1 cup M&M’S® Holiday Milk Chocolate Candies
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Prepare a 9×13 inch baking pan by lining it with parchment paper.
3. In a medium mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix well.
4. Add the flour and mix well. Fold in the nonpareils.
5. Press the dough evenly into the baking pan and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Cut the dough into 1/2 inch squares.
6. Place dough squares on a non-greased cold cookie sheet and bake for 5-6 minutes at 350 degrees. (Keep dough in refrigerator until it is time to bake them.) Top each cookie (or top half and leave half plain) with one semi-sweet chocolate morsel then return the tray of cookies to the oven for one minute until the chocolate morsels are melted. Top each melted chocolate morsel with one Holiday M&M’S®.
7. Transfer the cookie bites to parchment paper to cool to room temperature.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 50
- Calories: 103
- Sugar: 8
- Sodium: 4
- Fat: 6
- Saturated Fat: 3
- Unsaturated Fat: 2
- Trans Fat: 0
- Carbohydrates: 13
- Protein: 1
- Cholesterol: 10
Free Printable Gift Tags
Once you’ve made the Holiday Shortbread Cookie Bites Recipe and packed them into Ball® jars, print out my gift tags, cut them out, then punch a hole at the top to string pretty ribbon through and tie to your gift.
I recommend printing the gift tags on a semi glossy light weight card stock.
Christmas Gift Tags .PDF | Christmas Gift Tags .JPG
Enjoy making these fun and yummy gifts! Click here now for more holiday inspiration!
What a wonderful idea for a Christmas treat. And who doesn’t love those M&M’s. They are my guilty pleasure. I am sharing this post.
That is a great idea for a gift. These would make great teacher gifts.
This looks like a wonderful Christmas gift! I am always looking for cheaper, more homemade gifts and this looks great, thanks so much for the idea.
Oh my goodness these look amazing! I love how simple the recipe is. I am so going to make these! <3
These are so adorable! My son has a milk allergy, so these would be hard to make in my house, but I know many people that would love it. I’ll definitely have to try them out and pass it along. Thanks for sharing!
I like homemade gifts and can never eat enough M&M’s. This is a fun way to bake with the kids and have them make something special to give as gifts.
These cookie bites are so so cute! They have all the ingredients that my kid loves! I am going to make them soon!
What a great way to share a bite — or two — with others! I like how convenient these are. I might have to add them to our annual Holiday baskets.
My family and I love m&m chocolate so much. and it looks like a perfect Christmas treat for my kids. I will definitely try to make this for them.
We are making them as I write… they are falling apart and very dry♥️
Well, that’s a bummer! I’ve never had this problem, so here are a few things to consider:
1. Double check the amount of butter used. If there isn’t enough butter, there won’t be much to hold the dough together and it would end up dry and crumbly. Be sure you’ve used one whole cup (two sticks) of butter.
2. Be sure the flour is measured correctly. I’m always tempted to use my measuring cup to scoop the flour. But this packs the flour into the cup and you’ll end up with too much flour, which would make these cookies too dry. Flour should be spooned into the measuring cup and then leveled off with a knife.
Oh, and another thing to try would be kneading the dough after you’ve mixed it together. I’ve read some shortbread recipes that call for kneading the dough until it comes together into a ball. My Kitchen Aid does a great job of mixing the ingredients together, so I’ve never had to knead the dough. But depending on your mixer, you may just reach a point where you find you have to pour the dough out onto a clean counter and knead it until it forms a nice ball.