Shortbread Guava Cookies

Holiday baking season is in full swing in my kitchen. The oven is set to 350 degrees and in go the cookies like clock work. These shortbread guava cookies will change the cookie game. There is nothing like a great shortbread cookie. When you add sweet and scrumptious guava paste it will transform the cookie.

Out with one batch and in with another. It is so great to bake cookies and share the treat with friends, family, loved ones, and neighbors. The best thing about holiday baking is that there are so many different varieties of cookies. The classic chocolate chip, to chocolate peppermint, spicy gingerbread, and deliciously buttery shortbread cookies, plus so many many many more! 

These shortbread guava cookies are buttery, just sweet enough, and rich with fruity guava flavor. If you have never had guava paste it is a pure delight! My family loves it and living in Miami and being half Cuban well it is a part of the city and culture I know. It is not that sweet, slightly tart, and densely rich with flavor. I love it so much I eat it sometimes for a little snack or dessert. Here is actually a funny and great story as to why I love guava paste so much. 

When I lived in Alabama for my freshman year of college I missed some of my favorite and easily accessible foods, one of them being guava paste. So I used to write my grandparent (in Spanish to practice my Spanish writing skills) and I asked them to mail me guava paste. Boy they did (haha)!

I would have so much my roommate got concerned and curious. She started eating it like I did, a classic Cuban way of a saltine cracker, cream cheese, and a piece of guava paste. If you have never had this you have to try it because it is the ultimate sweet, salty, crunchy, chewy, and soft combo ever! So needless to say my love for guava paste is long standing. This holiday season I wanted to combine some of my favorite flavors into a cookie and well out came the shortbread guava cookie! Enjoy baking this delicious treat! 

Print Pin

Shortbread Guava Cookies

Total Time 25 minutes minutes

Servings 20 cookies

Author Alexandra Golovac, Health Coach

Ingredients

• 2 sticks Unsalted Butter Room temp
• 150 grams Cane Sugar
• 1 Whole Egg
• 1 Egg Yolk
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 tsp Sea Salt
• 1 cup Guava Paste small dice
• 360 grams All purpose flour

Instructions

• 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

  2. In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment cream together the sugar and butter. There is more butter than sugar so the consistency will look creamy but that is okay. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. 

  3. Add the vanilla extract, egg yolk, and whole egg. Mix together on low/medium speed for 30-45 seconds until it is all combined. 

  4. In a separate bowl whisk together the all purpose flour and sea salt. With the stand mixer on low slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Once you have added all the flour turn the speed up to medium and the cookie dough will look crumbly keep going about 1-1.5 minutes and then the cookie dough will come together. Turn the mixer off and using the spatula compact the shortbread cookie dough together. 

  5. Cut the guava paste into small pieces. 

  6. Roll about a golf ball size amount of the shortbread cookie dough. Make a hole in the center with your thumb and place the small diced pieces of guava paste in the center and roll the shortbread cookie dough around it. Place the shortbread guava cookie on the baking sheet. Gently flatten it with the palm of you hand and smooth the edges out. Continue this process until all the cookies are filled and shaped on the cookie sheet. Bake in the oven for 11-12 minutes until the edges are just golden. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheet then gently transfer them to the cooling rack. 

  Enjoy!