These Danish butter cookies are a delicious, classic Christmas cookie that everyone already knows and loves! While you can buy them in the iconic blue tin, this homemade version is even better! Not to mention, they only use 4 ingredients!
Best Danish Butter Cookies Recipe
Does anyone else just have to grab some of those blue tins at the store as soon as you see them? With the first bite, I know that the Christmas season is officially upon us!
Now, with this simple recipe, we can enjoy these holiday cookies all year long!
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Whether you're a pro at hosting Christmas dinner and holiday parties or giving it a try for the first time this year, you're sure to find my ultimate guide to planning Christmas a help! Don't forget to safely thaw your holiday prime rib early, too!
🥘 Danish Butter Cookies Ingredients, Notes, & Substitutions
- Butter - ½ cup of salted butter. You'll want it to be softened at room temperature. For the best flavor, I recommend using high-quality European butter.
- Confectioners Sugar - ½ cup of powdered sugar (or you can try out a confectioners sugar substitute).
- Vanilla - 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract.
- Cake Flour - 1 cup of cake flour, spooned and leveled. If you don't have any, you can make your own or just use all-purpose flour. I like how tender my cookies come out when using cake flour, but typical AP flour will work just fine in this recipe, too.
*Be sure to see the free printable recipe card below for ingredients, exact amounts & instructions with tips!*
🔪 How To Make Danish Butter Cookies
These 4-ingredient cookies are incredibly easy to make, and you can decorate them any way you like! All you are going to need is an electric mixer, your measuring cups, a 1M piping tip, a baking sheet, a rubber spatula, and a sieve.
This recipe will make approximately 14 cookies, depending on how large you pipe them. You can always double the recipe if needed!
Make The Danish Butter Cookies
Step 1: Cream the butter. Using an electric mixer or stand mixer, cream together ½ cup (113.5 grams) of butter, ½ cup (60 grams) of confectioners sugar, and 2 teaspoons (10 milliliters) of vanilla extract at medium-high speed for 5-8 minutes, or until fluffy and light in color.
Step 2: Incorporate flour. Scrape down the bottoms and edges of the bowl using a silicone spatula. Place a sieve over the bowl and sift 1 cup (125 grams) of cake flour into the butter in ⅓ cup increments, gently folding it into the dough after each addition.
Step 3: Prepare. Working in batches, add some of the dough to a piping bag fitted with a large open star tip (Wilton 1M or Ateco 826 piping tips are recommended) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Step 4: Pipe. Pipe the dough into 1-inch circles (or your desired shape) on the prepared baking sheet.
Step 5: Chill. Transfer the baking sheet to the fridge to chill for 20-30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C/Gas Mark 2).
Step 6: Bake. After the dough has chilled, bake the cookies for about 15 minutes or until the cookies begin to turn golden in color.
Step 7: Cool. Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before moving them to a cooling rack.
🍽️ What To Serve With Danish Butter Cookies
While these cookies are perfectly delicious all on their own, they also make a fantastic addition to holiday gift boxes! Pair them with some polar bear paw candies, Christmas cowboy cookies, and Christmas fudge for a wonderful, thoughtful box!
Of course, you can also serve them on the big day! Check out more easy Christmas desserts to round out your dessert table! Enjoy!
💭 Tips & Notes
- The piped circles are the most common style for these cookies, but you can definitely get creative with your designs! Try them as rectangles, in pretzel shapes, or even fun Christmas trees!
- Dip these cookies in melted chocolate or white chocolate and add some festive sprinkles for an extra tasty treat.
- This dough will be thick, making it slightly difficult to pipe (which is okay!)
- For best results, use a Wilton 1M or Ateco 826 piping tip. It should be a large open star tip. Anything smaller will make piping extremely hard to do.
- If using unsalted butter, you can add a pinch of salt to your dough.
- I enjoy using cake flour for these cookies because it makes them extra light and delicate. However, if you don’t have any, you can certainly use all-purpose flour instead.
- You can also skip the piping process altogether. Just roll out portions of the dough and press them down with a fork.
- Feel free to double the batch if you need more cookies for all of your holiday guests!
🥄 Make Ahead Options
You can easily prepare the cookie dough and pipe your cookies ahead of time!
Just store the piped dough in the freezer overnight (or up to 1 month). Bake them straight from frozen, but add a minute or two to your baking time.
🥡 Storing
Keep your baked Danish butter cookies stored at room temperature in a sealed container or tin with some parchment paper separating the layers for up to 1 week.
Freezing Danish Butter Cookies
Alternatively, you can also freeze your baked cookies. Just place them into a sealed container with some parchment paper separating each layer and freeze them for up to 3 months.
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❓ Recipe FAQs
The main difference between these two cookies is the ratio of butter to flour. Shortbread has a much higher ratio of butter to flour, which makes it rich and tender. Alternatively, Danish butter cookies have a lower ratio of butter to flour, which gives them their distinct texture and flavor.
Since these cookies have a lot of butter, chilling the dough is an essential step! When the dough is chilled, it makes the butter colder so that it won't melt as quickly in the oven! Check out my post on how to keep cookies from spreading for more advice.
Danish butter cookies have a very thick, firm dough that can be difficult to pipe. The most important thing is to make sure you are using the correct piping tip. A Wilton 1M piping tip is my favorite, but any large open-star tip should work.
You'll also want to make sure you chill the dough after piping. If you chill it beforehand, the cold dough will be even harder to pipe.
If you don't want to mess around with piping, you can always scoop the dough into balls and then gently press them down with a fork. They won't have the same appearance, but they will still taste great!
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📖 Recipe Card
Danish Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter (salted, softened, at room temperature)
- ½ cup confectioners sugar
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup cake flour (or all-purpose flour)
Instructions
- Using an electric mixer or stand mixer, cream together ½ cup butter, ½ cup confectioners sugar, and 2 teaspoon vanilla extract at medium-high speed for 5-8 minutes, or until fluffy and light in color.
- Scrape down the bottoms and edges of the bowl using a silicone spatula. Place a sieve over the bowl and sift 1 cup cake flour into the butter in ⅓ cup increments, gently folding it into the dough after each addition.
- Working in batches, add some of the dough to a piping bag fitted with a large open star tip (Wilton 1M or Ateco 826 piping tips are recommended) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Pipe the dough into 1-inch circles (or your desired shape) on the prepared baking sheet.
- Transfer the baking sheet to the fridge to chill for 20-30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C/Gas Mark 2).
- After the dough has chilled, bake the cookies for about 15 minutes, or until the cookies begin to turn golden in color.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack.
Notes
- The piped circles are the most common style for these cookies, but you can definitely get creative with your designs! Try them as rectangles, in pretzel shapes, or even fun Christmas trees!
- Dip these cookies in melted chocolate or white chocolate and add some festive sprinkles for an extra tasty treat.
- This dough will be thick, making it slightly difficult to pipe (which is okay!)
- For best results, use a Wilton 1M or Ateco 826 piping tip. It should be a large open star tip. Anything smaller will make piping extremely hard to do.
- If using unsalted butter, you can add a pinch of salt to your dough.
- I enjoy using cake flour for these cookies because it makes them extra light and delicate. However, if you don’t have any, you can certainly use all-purpose flour instead.
- You can also skip the piping process altogether. Just roll out portions of the dough and press them down with a fork.
- Feel free to double the batch if you need more cookies for all of your holiday guests!
- You can easily prepare the cookie dough and pipe your cookies ahead of time. Just store them in the freezer overnight (or up to 1 month). Bake them straight from frozen, but add a minute or two to your baking time.
- Keep your baked Danish butter cookies stored at room temperature in a sealed container or tin with some parchment paper separating the layers for up to 1 week.
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