52 shortbread recipes

Salted peanut chews with a brown sugar shortbread crust, gooey marshmallow layer, and a crunchy peanut butter chip topping loaded with crisp rice cereal and salted peanuts.

Chocolate pecan pie bars with a buttery shortbread crust and a gooey corn syrup filling loaded with chopped pecans and chocolate morsels. All the flavor of pecan pie, no pie dish needed.

Peanut pudding cake with four layers: peanut shortbread crust, peanut butter cream cheese, chocolate-vanilla pudding, and whipped topping with crumbled chocolate bars. A crowd-pleasing potluck dessert.

Four-layer peanut butter pudding cake with a peanut shortbread crust, cream cheese-peanut butter filling, chocolate-vanilla pudding layer, and whipped topping. A no-bake icebox dessert.

Pecan shortbread cookies with buttery, melt-in-your-mouth crumb and a simple powdered sugar glaze drizzle. Five ingredients, no eggs, with toasted pecans throughout each tender bite.

Ischler cookies are an Austrian classic from Bad Ischl: ground-almond shortbread rounds sandwiched with raspberry jam and crowned with espresso-spiked chocolate icing. Spa-town pastry royalty.

Pecan squares with a buttery shortbread crust and a gooey pecan pie filling baked on a sheet pan. All the flavor of pecan pie in a portable, shareable bar cookie format.

Ischler hearts: Austrian sandwich cookies with almond shortbread, apricot jam filling, and a glossy chocolate-rum glaze. Named after the spa town Bad Ischl, favorite of Emperor Franz Joseph.

Chocolate chunk cheesecake layers a walnut-chocolate shortbread crust with a brown sugar cream cheese filling studded with chopped chocolate, finished with a chocolate ganache glaze. Bakery-style dessert.

Sesame seed cookies are an Italian-American holiday classic with a tender shortbread-like dough rolled in toasted sesame seeds before baking. Massive batch (240 cookies) for cookie tins.

Kopenhai is a Greek almond torte with an orange-scented shortbread base, fluffy ground-almond souffle filling, crackly phyllo top, and a fragrant lemon-cinnamon syrup soaked through every diamond slice.

Sticky pecan bars with a buttery shortbread crust and gooey brown sugar-corn syrup filling loaded with pecan halves. Like pecan pie in bar form, easier to make and easier to share.

Sour cream apple pie with a cinnamon-spiced shortbread crust and a buttery walnut streusel top. McIntosh apples bake into a custardy filling that sets up creamy under the crunchy walnut topping.

European-style apple cake presses a rum-spiked shortbread base into a sheet pan, then tops it with grated tart apples, raisins, nuts, and cinnamon sugar. A sliceable, freezable bar-style cake.

Lemon cream and nut cookies, buttery shortbread ovals spread with homemade lemon curd and crowned with toasted almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, prunes, rum-soaked raisins, and candied orange. A jewel-box holiday cookie.

Buttery cinnamon nut squares baked low and slow with a shortbread-like base topped with egg white glaze and pressed pecans or almonds. A crisp, spiced bar cookie that ships and stores beautifully.