Danish Butter Cookies
Small buttery Danish biscuits piped into rings and swirls and baked for 12 minutes until pale gold, the blue tin classic.
Photograph credit: Danish-butter-cookies-1032894 by sdnet01 · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Before You Start
Beat the butter until almost white.
Pipe onto cold trays.
Keep the biscuits in a tin.
How to Make Danish Butter Cookies
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Heat the oven to 190°C / 375°F and line two cold trays.
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Beat the butter and caster sugar for 5 minutes until almost white. Beat in the egg and vanilla.
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Fold in the flour and salt to a soft dough.
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Spoon into a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe 30 rings and swirls. Sprinkle with the coarse sugar.
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Bake for 12 minutes until pale gold at the edges. Cool on the trays.
Why It Works
What is in the blue tin? Butter cookies, of course, and the secret of them is the quantity of butter and the way the dough is beaten. Danish butter cookies are small, crisp, sugar dusted biscuits piped into wreaths and swirls, and they are the biscuit that is eaten at Christmas around the world, usually from a tin that ends up holding sewing supplies.
Beat the butter and sugar for at least 5 minutes, until almost white and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla, then fold in the flour and a pinch of salt. The dough should be soft enough to pipe through a star nozzle, but stiff enough to hold its pattern. If it is too stiff, add a teaspoon of milk. Beat a minute longer if the dough looks curdled.
Pipe rings and S shapes, about 4 cm across, onto cold lined trays, spacing them 2 cm apart. Sprinkle with coarse sugar. Bake at 190°C / 375°F for 12 minutes, until the edges are pale gold. Cool on the tray, then store in a tin with a sheet of baking paper between the layers. They keep for 3 weeks.
Leftovers, Reheating and Keeping
Keeps for 3 weeks in a tin.
Good With
- Coffee
- Tea
- Hot chocolate
The Numbers per Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked.
First published ; last changed .
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