This homemade vanilla Danish butter cookies recipe makes delicious edible gifts! Fill your own tin of cookies with different, unique piped designs.
Recipe Science
- Use softened unsalted butter at 60°F to trap air during creaming, ensuring light, crisp cookies.
- Granulated sugar provides sweetness, creates air pockets for a crumbly texture, and keeps cookies crisp.
- Eggs add moisture for easy piping while providing structure to bind the ingredients together. The fat in the egg yolk adds richness.
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“Made these tonight in no time. Light and delicious, definitely will make again!”—Diane M.
Why It Works
Do you remember those iconic blue tins of buttery golden cookies that always appear around the holidays? My grandparents used to buy Royal Dansk Danish butter cookies, and they’d set them out on the coffee table for all the grandkids to enjoy. My favorite was the pretzel-shaped cookie topped with crunchy sugar that melted in your mouth—I could never resist them!
I decided to recreate those nostalgic treats this year with a homemade twist. Using just six simple ingredients, they are easy to prepare! These vanilla Danish butter cookies are perfect for sharing with friends and family and making adorable edible gifts!
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Butter: Using unsalted butter in Danish cookies lets you precisely control the salt level, ensuring a balanced flavor. Room-temperature butter at 60°F (16ºC) is ideal, as it maintains the fat crystals’ structure, which traps air during creaming. This step is crucial for achieving a light, crisp texture. Overly warm butter can cause the dough to lose structure, leading to dense cookies.
- Sugar: Granulated sugar adds a clean sweetness, creates air pockets for a light, crumbly texture, and helps keep the cookies crisp without adding moisture.
- Vanilla: These cookies are crisp and aromatic, with a vanilla flavor from real vanilla beans. Use a knife to scrape out the seeds, then add them to the dough.
- Salt: Salt enhances the dough’s flavor by balancing sweetness and intensifying the buttery taste, creating a more well-rounded flavor profile.
- Egg: Eggs add moisture to Danish cookies, making the dough soft and pliable for easy piping while also providing structure and enhancing richness.
- Flour: All-purpose flour’s moderate protein content (10-13%) provides the structure for the dough to hold its shape while baking.
See the recipe card below for all ingredients and measurements (US and metric).
Ingredient Substitutions
This Danish butter cookie recipe is easy to customize! Try these delicious options:
- Vanilla Bean Swaps: If you can’t access whole vanilla beans, use 1 ½ teaspoons of vanilla bean paste or extract. If you use vanilla extract, you won’t get the speckled appearance.
- Flavoring: Add almond extract, peppermint, anise, lemon, or orange zest.
- Decorations: Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Dip the shortbread in melted chocolate, then add chopped nuts, colorful sprinkles, or jimmies.
How to Make Danish Butter Cookies
Step 1: Preheat the Oven
Position the oven rack in the center for even heat distribution, then preheat to 350°F (177ºC). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper to prevent sticking.
Step 2: Make the Dough
The Danish butter cookie dough combines six simple ingredients: softened butter, granulated sugar, all-purpose flour, vanilla bean, egg, and salt. The butter and sugar are mixed in a stand mixer using the paddle attachment until light and fluffy.
This traps air, adding texture to the cookie. The salt, vanilla, and eggs are added for richness and flavor. Gradually stir in the flour until hydrated. Do not overmix, or it won’t be easy to pipe!
Step 3: Pipe the Cookies
I use a piping bag and 1/2-inch round and large open star piping tips (Ateco 806 for round and 824 for star tips) to create the fluted pretzels, wreaths, and circle-shaped cookies. You can also place the dough in a resealable plastic bag, cut off a 1/2-inch tip, and create the wreath-shaped cookies by making conjoined circles, as shown below.
Pipe them onto a parchment-lined baking sheet about 2 inches in size. I sprinkle the tops of these cookies with sparkling coarse sugar, but you can also use granulated sugar.
Step 4: Bake
Bake one tray at a time. They are ready when the surface looks dry and the bottoms are lightly golden brown, about 11 to 13 minutes.
Step 5: Let Them Cool
Let the cookies sit on the warm pan for about 3 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. The butter will firm up when it reaches room temperature, making the cookies crisper. Vanilla Danish butter cookies are very sturdy and perfect for dipping in tea or coffee.
Gifting Suggestions: Aren’t these cookies adorable when placed in white paper cups and packed into festive tins? I found some Christmas-themed tins at the 99-cent store, with plenty of sizes, shapes, and colors at a great price. If you love making personalized DIY gifts for special people, as I do, try creating your own cookie tin! Add a variety of treats, like Milano cookies, for an extra touch. Happy baking!
Frequently Asked Questions
A medium to large resealable plastic bag works well. You can cut the corner off the side of the bag to the desired thickness, about ¼ to ½ inch. Use your imagination to create different shapes and designs. The dough is pretty stiff and does not spread much during baking. For designs that are meant to have a hole in the center, like the wreaths, make the center gap big enough so it doesn’t close completely after baking.
Danish butter cookies include eggs, which add structure. The extra moisture makes the dough pliable for piping intricate shapes. Shortbread cookies rely solely on butter for flavor and structure, giving them a simpler, less sweet profile that’s easier to roll and cut out into shapes.
Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.
More Cookie Recipes
If you tried this Danish Butter Cookies Recipe, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below!
Danish Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened to 60 to 65°F (16 to 18°C)
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ vanilla bean, seeds scraped
- 1 large egg
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, measured then sifted
Instructions
- Preheat the Oven – Position the rack in the center of the oven. Preheat to 350°F (177ºC). Line two large sheet trays with parchment paper and set aside.
- Make the Dough – Using the paddle attachment on a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add salt, vanilla, and egg. Mix on medium speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Gradually add the flour to the bowl, mixing on low speed for about 1 minute.
- Pipe the Cookies – Scrape the dough into a piping bag fitted with a 1⁄2" star tip or desired tip. Pipe 1 ½ to 2" pretzel or wreath shapes onto the parchment paper-lined sheet trays, at least 2" apart. If desired, sprinkle the tops of the cookies with granulated sugar or large coarse sparkling sugar.
- Bake – Bake one tray at a time. Bake until cookies are lightly golden on the bottom, about 11 to 13 minutes.
- Let Them Cool – Leave the cookies on the baking sheet for 3 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
- Use Softened Butter: The butter should be cool and give some resistance when poked.
- Flour Selection: Gold Medal all-purpose flour was used in this recipe.
- Vanilla Bean Substitution: Use 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract or paste
- Work Quickly: The longer you let the dough sit in the piping bag, the thicker it becomes. Try to pipe right after making the dough if possible.
- If Too Thick to Pipe: Shortbread cookie dough tends to be thicker than other piping dough. If needed, add 1 to 3 teaspoons of milk, 1 teaspoon at a time, and combine until just mixed.
- If too Soft to Pipe: If the dough is too soft and does not hold its shape, gradually add 1 tablespoon (9 g) of all-purpose flour at a time, adding more as needed up to ¼ cup (36 g). The dough typically gets thicker as it sits as the proteins absorb the moisture, so try to wait a few minutes between adding additional flour.
- Storing: Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.
Nutrition Facts
Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000-calorie diet. All nutritional information is based on estimated third-party calculations. Each recipe and nutritional value will vary depending on the brands you use, measuring methods, and portion sizes per household.
Tatiana says
Mine melted in the oven and flattened out.
Jessica Gavin says
How was the texture of the dough when it was piped? How soft was the butter? Have you checked the temperature of the oven to make sure it’s accurate? How did you measure the flour? I use a dip and then sweep the excess off the top method. Just seeing where we might be able to troubleshoot.
Carole says
My kids and I made these for Santa tonight. Yum! And Santa thanks you, too! 😉
Patti Sheppard says
This recipe is great! I’m wondering if almond paste could be added to make this a more “old school” danish cookie recipe. If so, how much would I add? Would it change the quantity of butter I used? Thanks so much for your help!
Jessica Gavin says
I think almond paste would be very tasty! Perhaps 1 to 2 tablespoons, don’t change the amount of butter.
Maire says
Hi! I want to try out some of your recipes like this one but I don’t have any kitchen aids except for grandma’s hand mixer… do the recipies still work if j simply mix the dough together or would you recommend something else?
Jessica Gavin says
I think you should definitely try to hand mixer, you might just have to adjust mixing time. Keep a close eye on the texture of the dough as it mixes to know when to stop mixing.
Mariam says
Thank you for the recipe, I have one question – you don’t use baking soda as I see, right? Is it still nice without baking soda? In few recipes I saw that baking soda is also listed, actually I did it once with baking soda and they grew in size and became more fluffy but still very tasty and without soda, they are more crispy and thin.
Jessica Gavin says
Hi Mariam- Baking soda tends to make baked goods spread more and be crispier. I love to be able to hold the piping shape of the cookies, so I keep the baking soda out.
Kolleen Dohermann says
Do I have to have to use a stand mixer to make this recipe? Will a hand mixer get the job done?
Jessica Gavin says
Hi Kolleen- I think a hand mixer would work!
Diane McCalla says
Made these tonight in no time, light and delicious, definitely will make again.
Jessica Gavin says
Yay! Thank you for your feedback Diane 🙂
Vishal S says
Instead of egg what should i use..?
Jessica Gavin says
Hi Vishal- You could try using a flax egg (1 tablespoon ground flaxseed mixed with 3 tablespoons water, and allowed to thicken for 10 minutes). The texture will be slightly different, perhaps denser and less crisp. But worthwhile to give a try!
Crystal says
If some of these people cannot find measurement converters on the internet, they probably shouldn’t be in contact with a stove or kitchen utensils. Unbelievable.
Karma says
If you only come here to spread negativity, you shouldn’t be on the internet. Unbelievable.
Esther Olabiyi says
Pls. I am from Nigeria and the measurement in grams I used would give me a soft batter .pls can u help me out.
Thanks in anticipation.
Esther Olabiyi says
Pls it seems the butter is too much for the flour it made it soft. Is that how it should be.
Thank you
Jessica Gavin says
Hi Esther, thank you for contacting me! I recently tested the recipe using the indicated weights and the dough should be pipeable and hold its shape. What did it look like? How soft was the butter? Was it very soft, almost melted? I usually use butter that is between 16 to 18°C, soft but still cool. Also, you can add more flour if needed to absorb the fat, I would add 9 grams at a time until it feels easy to pipe.