Now just what the heck are Carrot Cake Shortbread Cookies you might ask? This dessert mashup takes all the flavors that you love from carrot cake and bakes them into a perfectly delicious sandwich cookie. With notes of caramely brown sugar, lots of vanilla, and hints of cinnamon, this bitesize dessert packs a whole lot of flavor. And don’t forget that irresistible cream cheese filling that holds it all together. Any dessert with cream cheese frosting is a winner in my book! Do you see those ingredients listed below? Go ahead and add them to your grocery list right now because you’re going to be baking Carrot Cake Shortbread Cookies this weekend.

Here’s all you’ll need: vanilla extract, butter, finely shredded shredded carrots, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, pecan halves, powdered sugar, and cream cheese.

Let’s get started! Add 1 cup of softened butter, vanilla extract and 1/3 a cup of finely shredded carrots to a medium sized bowl. Beat with an electric hand mixer for 1 minute. Transfer the butter mixture to a sheet of plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 20 minutes.

A couple things to keep in mind: Shred the carrots as fine as possible think itty bitty to avoid large hunks of carrots in your cookies. This is also a good time to shred an additional tablespoon of carrots to use later in the recipe for that amazing cream cheese frosting I mentioned earlier.

Pure vanilla extract works best to achieve that intense vanilla flavor. You could also get a little bit fancy and use the seeds from a vanilla bean.

You can soften the butter ahead of time by leaving it set out on a countertop or nuke it in the microwave for no longer than 15 seconds. We’re looking for softened not melted.

Next add 2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, and 3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon to a large bowl. Cut in the butter mixture with a pastry blender, a fork or even a knife until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. A pastry blender is one of those kitchen tools that’s more of a luxury than a necessity. If you shop around you can snag one that’s really inexpensive. Plus they’re small and don’t take up a whole lot of cupboard space.

Knead the crumbs by hand until a smooth dough forms. Now you’re going to look at those crumbs and think how the heck is this mixture ever going to turn into a dough? But don’t worry. The heat from your hands will warm the butter and help the flour and sugar to cling to it. It took me about 10 minutes of squishing and squeezing and kneading to make this magic happen. Don’t give up on it! If after 10-15 minutes it’s looking like it’s not going to happen for you just add some softened butter a tablespoon at a time to help along the process.

Shape the dough into 1-inch balls and place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Place the balls at least 2 inches apart. I was able to fit 20 cookies on my largest baking sheet. Use the bottom of a glass to flatten each cookie to 1/4-inch thickness.

I’m a total parchment paper advocate! Parchment paper is a non-stick baking paper. It reduces browning and when you’re done using it you can just toss it in the trash. No mess! It’s probably my favorite baking tool.

Next press a pecan into the top of every other cookie. For every cookie with a pecan we will also need one without. The pecans topped cookies will be the top of our sandwich and the ones without will be the bottoms. Of course if you’re not a fans of pecans or allergic to nuts, you can skip this step and go without. Bake in a 300 degree preheated oven for 15 minutes or until the bottoms begin to brown. Remove from the oven and leave the cookies on the baking sheet for one minute and then transfer to wire racks until cool.

For perfect cookies every time I always rotate the baking sheets halfway through baking. Always use the top and middle racks in the oven, never the bottom. And then about halfway through baking time swap positions. So the cookies that were baking on the top rack get bumped down to the middle rack and the cookies that were baking on the middle rack get moved up to the top. I also rotate the baking sheets so that the cookies that were in the front of the oven are now in the back and vice versa. This helps all the cookies to bake evenly and will yields the very best results. Every. Time.

While the cookies are cooling we can whip up that absolutely essential (in my opinion) cream cheese filling. This will be used to sandwich our Carrot Cake Shortbread Cookies together. Add 1/4 cup butter and 2 ounces of cream cheese to a small bowl. You’ll want both of these ingredients softened so again you can leave them out on the countertop while the cookies are baking or toss them in the microwave for about 10 seconds. Add 1 cup of powdered sugar and beat on a low speed with an electric mixer to combine. Gradually increase the speed to a higher setting and continue to whip until the frosting is smooth and creamy. Stir in 1 tablespoon of shredded carrots (from earlier). 

Spread the cream cheese frosting on the bottoms of the cookies without pecans. Top with the remaining cookies, pecan side up to make these adorably sweet cookie sandwiches. Shortbread cookies contain a larger ratio of butter to flour resulting in cookies that are crumbly and tender and store great in the fridge.

Now that’s some dessert goals right there! Cookie baking on your mind? Try our Mini Cinnamon Roll Cookies or Toffee Cookies next!

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