Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Butter Cookies

I remember when I was little we'd often go around to my parent's friend's houses for public holidays. There'd always be sumptuous feasts, games (for both kids and adults), hours of TV and Royal Dansk Butter Cookies in a big blue round tin. My parents aren't big on the sweets, so we never bought these cookies ourselves, which only made those at other people's homes extra special. The piped ones always went first. And then the pretzel ones. And then nobody would have any room left for the crappy ones (another reason why we didn't buy any: the tins never get finished). 

It had been a long time since I last had one of these cookies from a tin. And I missed them. So like any food blogger worth her sugar, I baked some. 

They were really good. 

And then my Mother gave them all away. I only had 4! 4!

Oh well...an excuse to make another batch I suppose.

Danish Butter Cookies
125g butter*
45g icing sugar
135g plain/all purpose flour
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2tsp baking powder**

*I always like to use salted butter, simply because I like the hit of saltiness among the sweet, but by all means use unsalted if you prefer.
**The baking powder is optional. Most butter cookie recipes are without it, but I like to give my cookies a bit extra crisp fluffiness.

These have got to be the easiest cookies I've ever made. All done in one bowl, with a hand mixer. Simply cream together the butter and icing sugar until light and creamy. Add the sifted flour and baking powder and mix in. Add the vanilla essence and beat in. And the batter is done!

Line a cookie sheet with baking paper. Spoon everything into a piping bag fitted with a star tip and pipe into circles, or whatever shape you want. I found that the batter was a bit too stiff for piping, so I gave it a couple seconds in the microwave until it was pipable. Take care not to nuke it for more than 5-10 seconds at a time though, or you might end up with a melted butter soup. Bake at 150°C for 12-15 minutes until lightly browned.

Try to refrain from eating all of them withing the hour.

14 comments:

  1. wow cant believe ur mum didnt save me any :P

    they must've been so good...

    :(

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  2. lol we did the same thing with the "Royal Dansk Butter Cookies" in the blue tin :D
    ate the good ones, and kept the others until they were stale, because no one would eat them, and no one would want to dispose of them!

    ha!

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  3. yea, my Mum used to say that we couldn't buy them because half of them get wasted. I never told her that the wasted half were the crappy ones.

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  4. ahahaha lol i think she secretly knew that they were crap :D

    ahhh mm they do look SOOO good though... i want to frame them :D

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  5. Thank you so much for sharing your recipe and the cookies look lovely!

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  6. Really really amazing.. :) I was searching for an eggless butter cookie recipe and came across your's. It simply turned out so crisp and tasty :) Thank you so much :)

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  7. Hi Courtney. It does really depend on how large or small you pipe your cookies. I liked to pipe them fairly small, about 5cm across and I usually turned out 50-60 cookies. Keep in mind you can pipe these guys in any shape you like! One of my favourite shapes was just a little rosette piped with a closed star tip.

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  8. These were great... I changed the recipe just a bit by adding 1 room temp egg.. very light and fluffy, but you were right I should have used salted butter it would have been perfect!!

    Thanks for sharing a great recipe!

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  9. Thanks Renee! Great to hear you had success :) I'll have to try adding an egg sometime.

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  10. I made the cookies this morning. It's the best cookie ever. Got a question. Which tip did you use to pipe your cookies. I use 1M and the cookies didn't turn out as pretty as yours Thanks for sharing.

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  11. Hi Nat! Glad you like the cookies! The 1M tip probably doesn't have enough tips on its star to achieve the look you're after. I no longer have the tip that I used to take these photos, but from memory it was a squared off tip (like a castle's battlements). Any large-ish star tip with lots of points should work :)

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  12. Hi Nooblet: do I have to use cream butter or any butter?

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  13. Hi Lily,
    I'm not too sure what you mean by "cream butter" or "any butter". Definitely recommend using actual milk fat butter, but if you need the recipe to be vegan you might be able to replace with a butter substitute like Nuttelex. I've not tried this myself, as I love the flavour of real butter, but let me know how you go!
    Whatever you decide to use, you will need to check that it has a high fat content (i.e. please don't use a light margarine/canola spread).

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