On the fifth day of Christmas cookies, I give to you: easy, low-calorie shortbread. Ba-dom dom dom.

Since the macarons from Day 4 are so high-maintenance, I wanted to give you a recipe that doesn’t require a lot of time in the kitchen. These don’t look super Christmas-y, but the spices are very festive. If you like chai, you will enjoy these cookies.

These taste great with a cup of tea or milk.

You will need two bowls, unfortunately. But it’s still easy.

Make sure the butter-sugar mixture is super fluffy.

The dough will be very crumbly, so you will have to smoosh it a bit to be able to roll it into logs. Try to make sure the logs are relatively solid or there will be holes in the cookies. I actually had to add some additional water to get the dough to hold together.

It’s easiest to use a serrated knife (the kind with teeth) to slice the dough. If the dough is still pretty crumbly, slice the cookies a little thicker and/or smoosh the cookies back together before baking.

You can make them kind of festive by stacking them and tying the stack with a ribbon, or make a glaze and put some sprinkles on them like so:

Chai shortbread (adapted from Cooking Light)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup powdered sugar
10 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
1 to 2 tablespoons ice water

Combine flour and spices, stirring well with a whisk. Place sugar and butter in another bowl and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating at low speed until just combined. The mixture will look crumbly.

Sprinkle dough with 1 tablespoon ice water and toss with a fork to combine. Add additional tablespoon of water if needed. Divide dough in half. Shape the dough into two 6-inch-long logs. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and chill for an hour (or until very firm).

Preheat oven to 375. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicon liner.

Unwrap dough logs and carefully slice into thin cookies using a serrated knife (the recipe says to cut each log into 18 cookies, but I have never been able to slice them that thin). Place the dough circles two inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 10 minutes, until lightly golden. Cool on pans 5 minutes. Remove cookies from pans and cool completely.

Optional glaze: Combine 3 tablespoons powdered sugar with about 1 teaspoon milk and a drop or two of food coloring, until glaze is desired color and consistency. Drizzle over cooled cookies and allow to dry.