Holiday season is almost upon us, which means cookies in the break room again. Shortbread is a favorite because you can make many variations with one big batch of dough. If you have a tried-and-true shortbread dough you love, you can easily adapt it by mixing ground coffee into the dough and glazing the cookies with coffee icing (recipe below).

We followed this recipe, for the shortbread dough, with a couple of changes: we used our 0 Dark 30 blend coffee, ground for a standard autodrip machine, and two kinds of icing to mix things up a little.

Ingredients (yield: about two dozen cookies)

For the dough
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon ground 0 Dark 30 (or any dark roast coffee you like)
½ vanilla bean, split and scraped for seeds
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 cup flour, sifted

For the icing
1 cup powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons half and half (or strong brewed coffee, cooled)

You can find the full directions for the dough here. Mix the icing ingredients together until smooth and glaze the cookies once they have cooled completely. Then bring them to work so you don’t eat them all by yourself.

Or Filthy Caucasian? Call it what you like, this recipe is for coffee fiends who believe that even coffee liqueur would be better with more coffee. This recipe was inspired by our dark roasted White Russian Iced Coffee, one of the best flavors of the summer. A shot of chilled coffee makes for a welcome addition to the classic drink. Try it with White Russian flavor or your favorite coffee brewed strong.

Ingredients

2 oz. vodka
1 oz. coffee liqueur
1/2 oz. fresh-brewed coffee, cooled
1 oz. cream

Instructions

Add the first three ingredients to ice in an a old-fashioned glass. Add the cream (or milk, or the milk-like beverage of your choice) and stir. If you prefer separation between the layers, pour the cream into the glass SLOWLY over the back of a spoon. Impress all your friends.