Description
These super easy butter cookies use one bowl, six ingredients, and make a tender and buttery butter cookie with a melt in your mouth texture. These butter cookies can be piped out and baked fresh, so ready in just under 30 minutes, or they can be prepared ahead and chilled or frozen until you are ready to bake them. Finish them with granulated sugar, dip half in chocolate, or add your favourite glaze or icing.
Ingredients
- 200g salted butter, at room temperature
- 70g powdered sugar / icing sugar, sifted if lumpy
- 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
- 210g all-purpose flour, sifted if lumpy
- 30g corn starch
- 20g heavy cream or milk, room temperature.
- Granulated sugar for finishing, optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°f / 165°c. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Fit a large sturdy piping bag with a large open star tip of your choice - I used an ateo #827.
- In a medium bowl using an electric hand mixer, or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, whip together the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla on medium to high speed until light and fluffy, stopping to scrape down the bowl once or twice during the process to ensure it is well mixed.
- Add the flour and corn starch and mix with the mixer to just incorporate. Add in the heavy cream, and mix again to combine.
- Transfer the mixture to the piping bag - I find the best way to do this is to put the piping bag into a glass jar or deli container and fold the edges over the sides of the glass to give an opening. Use a bench scraper or something similar to push all the mixture to the end of the piping bag. Secure the end with a clip if desired.
- If you would like, use a tiny bit of the batter to hold your parchment paper down on each corner to stop it from moving as you pipe.
- Pipe out the cookies - I did three rows of five cookies. Pipe each into a rosette - hold the piping bag straight up and down, then using even pressure, pipe a circle of dough until it loops back onto itself, finishing with a little flick of the wrist. The rosettes should be about 4.5cm in diameter but this will depend on the size of your piping tip.
- Leave a little room for spreading. Repeat with the rest of the cookies. If you are not happy with one, just scrape it off the parchment paper and pop it back into the bag and try again.
- Once all of the cookies have been piped out, sprinkle with granulated sugar if using, then transfer to the oven. Bake for 13-14 minutes, until the cookies are set and lightly golden brown around the edges. If you like a more golden brown and crunchy cookie, increase the cooking time slightly.
- Remove from the oven, and if you put sugar on them before the oven, give them another coating hot from the oven.
- Leave to cool on the pan for 15-20 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Store butter cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.
Notes
If you only have unsalted butter, use that and include 1/4 tsp salt in the recipe - add it with the flour.
Corn Starch is called cornflour in New Zealand and some other places.
Heavy cream is the one that you use to make whipped cream. If you do not have any, you can use full fat milk, or I have also made them without and they worked ok, they were just a little harder to pipe.
If you are having a hard time working with all of the dough in the piping bag at once, you can take a little out and add as needed - this will make it a little easier to pipe.
I used an ateo #827 tip, which is an open star piping tip. You can use whatever tip you like, but I recommend using something on the larger side so that you can easily pipe the rosettes. The 827 has a 0.56" / 1.44cm opening. These butter cookies would also work with something like a french star tip, which is an ateco #867 (the first two numbers correspond to the shape and the last one corresponds to the size of the piping tip opening).
If you wanted to make this recipe and freeze to bake later, pipe out the cookies as directed (you can space them closer together), then freeze on the pan until the cookies are solid, then peel off the parchment and transfer to an airtight container. They should store in the freezer for up to 3 months. If you want to add sugar to the outside of the cookies, do this just before they go into the oven.
Store your butter cookies in an airtight container at room temperature. Make sure that they are fully cooled before going into the container, as excess moisture that is released from them as they cool can cause them to go soggy.
The cookies will store for up to a week stored in an airtight container - I find that the taste develops super well too after a few days.
If you are wanting to make these to send or to store well, then make sure they are well baked - this will make sure they are nice and sturdy and keep their texture well when stored.