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Classic Danish Butter Cookies with a Modern Twist

Danish butter cookies are one of my favorites! I don’t know about you, but around the holidays one of those blue tins always popped up around my house. Whether we got it as a gift or bought it to give as a gift, which I would proceed to eat anyways (sorry, Mom). 

This year I decided to try my hand at making my own Danish butter cookies, which turned out to be so much easier than I anticipated. The dough is just like sugar cookie dough, but not quite as dry. You want to be able to pipe it through a piping tip after all.

I also wanted to mix things up a bit and color my dough for the various shapes of the cookies. I kept it plain for the classic pretzel shape, green for the wreath, and red for the rose.

Since Thanksgiving I have been trying to think of ways I could make flower shaped cookies, using my piping tips. Little did I know the answer was right under my nose!

For the roses I used a 2D tip,the wreath a #32 tip (although you could go a tad bigger), and for the pretzel I used a #10 tip.

Now, the hardest part about these cookies is piping them. Recruit someone with strong forearms, like a baseball player, bowler, tug-of-war champion to do this part for you. 

If you don’t have access to anyone like that, just use two hands to pipe out the dough.

Once they are piped, they can get sprinkled with some sugar or go straight into the oven.

While they do puff up and spread out in the oven, they still maintain their cute shapes! I mean, those roses….I love them! 

I think these butter cookies will be one of my go-to Christmas cookies from here on out. Not only are they a classic, but you can give them a but of a modern touch with some food coloring and different piping tips. 

Danish Butter Cookies
Yields 24
Classic Danish butter cookies
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Prep Time
20 min
Cook Time
15 min
Total Time
35 min
Prep Time
20 min
Cook Time
15 min
Total Time
35 min
Ingredients
  1. 1 cup butter, softened
  2. 1/2 cup granulated sugar (114 g)
  3. 1 large egg
  4. 1 tsp vanilla extract
  5. 1/8 tsp coconut extract (optional)
  6. 2 cups flour (252 g)
  7. 1/4 tsp salt
  8. sanding sugar for topping (optional)
  9. food coloring (optional)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment and set aside.
  2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in egg, vanilla, and coconut extract.
  3. Add flour and salt to the bowl and mix until combined. The dough should be very sticky.
  4. If coloring your dough, add food coloring to the dough and mix until it is a consistent color.
  5. Place dough into piping bags fitted with tip or nozzle of choice (see notes for the tips used for these cookies).
  6. Squeeze dough out into desired shape about 1 inch apart on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with sanding sugar and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until just golden brown around the edges.
  7. Allow to cool on the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
  8. Store in an airtight container for up to a week.
Notes
  1. For the pretzel shaped cookie, use a #10 circle piping tip.
  2. For the rose shaped cookies, use a #2d piping tip.
  3. For the wreath shaped cookies, use a #32 piping tip.
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Holiday Wreath Cookies using Piping Tips

It may not surprise you to find you that I have been doing lots of holiday baking since Black Friday. Honestly, I wish I could be doing more. I had so many fun decorated cookies in mind for the holidays, but I don’t have time to do them all. 

Despite that, I did find time to make some holiday wreath cookies using my favorite piped flower techniques. Really, they are no different than these floral letters I made for Fall or for Mother’s Day. I love making cookies like this using piping tips because they look very elegant and detailed, but you and I know that they are actually pretty easy!

I used the same techniques to add a flower garland to a Christmas tree and to add flowers around a royal icing banner. Piping tips are so versatile and make the cookies look professional.

The piping tips I used for these cookies were:

  • #14 and #24 to make roses, 
  • #74 to make the large leaves, 
  • #379 to make the small leaves, and
  • #16 to make the green star-shaped filler

For some of the cookies, I added some dots just for a bit more color and texture, but I didn’t even bother with a piping tip for those, as a zip-top bag or piping bag does the job.

There are so many fun things to do with piping tips and they are one of my favorite tools to use to decorate cookies. As you can see, they are actually pretty easy to use if you use the right consistency of icing. 

Anytime I use piping tips, I use a stiff consistency icing. That means the icing is very thick. When I mix up my icing, typically I add some water to thin it down. For stiff consistency icing, I barely add water because I want the icing to form a stiff peak when I lift the spoon up from the surface. 

That ensures that all those little details from the piping tip stay put and don’t settle into a blob of icing.

And if you are wondering why my cookies are green, it’s because I made my pistachio sugar cookie recipe from my Ultimate Christmas Cookie guide. But really, you could tint any cookie dough green or leave them plain. 

Tools used:


 

 

Floral Monogram Mother’s Day Cookies

If you know me, then you know that I can’t let a holiday, no matter how big or small, pass without making some cookies (all my friends are probably nodding their head in agreement right about now). I definitely take advantage of all my friends’ sweet tooths (Sweet teeth? What is the plural of sweet tooth?) by making cookies and forcing them upon them every chance I get. 

These cookies are no exception. After making these cookies for a friends bridal shower, I couldn’t wait to try this floral monogram design again. I knew it would be perfect for Mother’s Day. And even better, I know lots of deserving mom’s out there who definitely a couple cookies to help them celebrate. 

 

For my mom, I made individual letters that spelled out mom and covered them in flowers. But for my friends who are not my mom I made them each individual initial cookies. 

How cute are they? And not just good for Mother’s Day, but they would be great cookies for a bridal shower, baby shower, birthday, wedding….you name it! I am obsessed. 

[Friends, expect to get cookies like these for every birthday from now until the end of time. Thanks.]

The best part is that these cookies are actually quite easy if you have the right piping tips! Just layer on flowers until you have a full letter. 

I like to start with my bigger flowers, like rosettes. I place the rosettes randomly around the cookie leaving space for other flowers. 

Then I go in with my smaller flowers, like drop flowers, and fill in some more space. 

There is obviously some space left, so I go back in and fill them in with some more dots of icing and then fill it in with the leaves. 

Really, there is no technique…just fill up the space!

To go with the monograms, I made some simple little hearts and circle cookies with a single flower and a couple leaves. (Oh, and see those mint “Happy Mother’s Day” plaque cookies? I will show you how I made those on Friday!!)

I am clearly obsessed with these cookies, as you can tell. I think I just like doing the floral designs because they are really impressive without actually being that hard to achieve. 

But that’s just a secret between you and me. If my mom asks, I slaved over these cookies for days just for her. K, thanks! 😉

Recipes Used:

  • 2 batches of my Royal Icing for 40 cookies in flood consistency (the base layer) and stiff consistency (the flowers).
  • 2 1/2 batched of my Sugar Cookie recipe 

Items Used:

  • White Rose – #18 piping tip
  • Light Pink Rose – #16 piping tip
  • Redish Pink Drop Flower/Rose – #225 piping tip
  • Medium Pink Drop flower – #14 piping tip
  • Leaves – #349 piping tip
  • Dots – #2 piping tip
  • Piping Bags
  • Scribe Tool
  • Gel Food Coloring in light pink, watermelon, and forest green

 

 

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