Butter Cookies For Christmas | Cookie Box
No Christmas is complete without cookies! As a child, every year, in the run up to Christmas my Mum would stock up on a variety of different cookie tin selections. The temptation to eat them all before Christmas was way too much for me and my siblings, so she would have to hide them.
I love anything with chocolate (who doesn’t? If you know someone that doesn’t, please point them out!), so the chocolate cookies from the cookie tin selection always went down well. However, by far the most delicate melt in your mouth moreish flavour was the butter cookies - enter the Danish Butter Cookie. They were fabulous!
JUMP TO RECIPE
For me, there ALWAYS has to be Danish Butter cookies for Christmas (well actually even after Christmas as well, when I used to stock pile on the marked down Danish Butter Cookie tin selection on sale at the supermarket). Less of me digressing and letting my secrets out!
Such is my love for butter cookies, I began looking at and experimenting with ingredients and recipes to find the one that reminded me of my childhood, I am super pleased to say that I eventually found it! I have had this recipe for several years now, so I have been baking butter cookies throughout the year for years now. However, Christmas time is when this beautiful cookie can be showcased with no limits.
To show off this amazing butter cookie, and with wonderful inspiration from fellow bloggers Arie at Delightfully Styled and Camila at Pies and tacos. I have created my first Christmas Cookie Box (Tin! I wanted it to be like my childhood). Whoop, Whoop!
Scribbling away in my note book, I have been planning all the flavours, fillings and designs for each cookie. I had so much fun pulling it all together!
I kept it simple to start with, making four flavours - Vanilla, Chocolate, Almond and Ginger. I used my butter cookie recipe as the base and have adapted it to make each of the flavours and a roll out cookie dough. With all that said, let the cookie box games begin!
Use The Right Flour
I’ve recently had a good friend in the UK ask this question:
What is Cake Flour? Should I use Plain or Self Raising Flour to make these?
Coming from the UK (but now living in Thailand), I had completely forgotten that they don’t have cake flour there. My initial thought, was to direct her to Sponge Flour (which is in the UK), but that has raising agents in it. Any form of flour with raising agents in it for these cookies will not be great, since you don’t want these cookies to spread or rise in any way!
I would recommend if you are in the UK or in a country that does not have Cake Flour (without raising agents) use Plain Flour (All Purpose Flour). Here is a link that explains about Cake Flour and use of other flours in more detail.
Gather Your Baking Tools Together
I used the following baking tools to designs my cookies:
My lovely cookie gun, that creates the cutest cookies ever!
My handy stitch tool and cookie cutter letters that helped me create this yummy chocolate cookie beauty!
Baking: Christmas Joy
Baking, your own cookie box, will bring so much joy, especially if you do it with your family or friends. Some of my fondest memories are baking with my Mum and siblings, actually it’s the reason why I think I eventually took up baking and cake decorating. It will bring hours of fun, strengthen family ties, bring friendships closer together, create special moments and experiences, that will last forever, all while whipping up these delicious creations.
Bake Someone’s Day!
I know, I’m sorry, pardon the pun on this! However, if you do make a cookie box, they are a fabulous gift to give to family and friends. You can make up your box, to include your loved ones favourite flavours and fillings. You will be greatly remember and so appreciated. I am planning to give some of these cookie boxes out as gifts to my neighbours.
Making It Look Pretty
I used a tin, because it reminds me of my childhood; I purchased it from a local Thai store, but you can easily pick these up from a craft shop or Amazon like this fun see through lid Christmas Penguin tin or something less Christmasy like these beautiful coloured trendy patterned tins . The bonus is a pretty tin makes a wonderful keepsake. Or, you could use an actual box, I have seen lots of bakers on Pinterest go down this route. You could choose a plain box that you could decorate in your own personal way.
Bring It All Together
Before assembling all your yummy cookie creations together, you will need to line your tin or box with parchment paper (baking paper). You can do this by tracing your tin or box and cut the parchment to fit - so with a square or a rectangle, cut two strips one for each direction. With a round tin or box, cut a circle to line the base and one long strip to line around the sides. If you don’t want to use parchment paper, you could use cupcake cases or loaf liners.
Next make your box look enticing by placing your cookies in an interesting way rather than just stacking. You can tie them together with twine, or turn them on there side—it’s all about breaking up the pattern and making it look pleasing to the eye!
Once that is all done, the only thing left to be done is… Give them as a gift to family or friend… Or my favourite is to relax and enjoy these scrumptious cookies with a lovely cup of hot chocolate!
My favourite cookie is the Ginger Butter Cookie with Caramel, they pair together so well. Check out my sticky toffee pudding to make the caramel/toffee sauce that I used with this cookie.
BUTTER COOKIES FOR CHRISTMAS | COOKIE BOX
Ingredients
- 100g Unsalted Butter (soften to room temperature)
- 50g Icing Sugar
- 25g Egg
- ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
- 140g Cake flour
- Add additional 3 – 5 tbsp Cake flour to make vanilla butter cookie dough
- 100g Unsalted Butter (soften to room temperature)
- 60g Icing Sugar
- 25g Egg
- ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
- 110g Cake flour
- 20g Cocoa powder
- Add additional 3 – 5 tbsp Cake flour to make chocolate butter cookie dough
- 100g Unsalted Butter (soften to room temperature)
- 50g Icing Sugar
- 25g Egg
- ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
- 140g Cake flour
- 1 + ½ tsp Ground ginger
- ½ tsp Cinnamon
- 1tsp Cocoa powder
- Add additional 3 – 5 tbsp Cake flour to make ginger butter cookie dough
- 100g Unsalted Butter (soften to room temperature)
- 60g Icing Sugar
- 25g Egg
- ½ tsp Almond Extract
- 110g Cake flour
- 20g Almond flour - Make sure almond flour is fine
- Add additional 3 – 5 tbsp Cake flour to make almond butter cookie dough
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 170 C (338 F)
- Soften the butter to be soft to the touch (if it is not soft already), add to bowl.
- Sieve the icing sugar into the butter. Using hand mixer, mix until light, fluffy and pale in colour.
- Add the eggs and vanilla to the butter & icing sugar mixture in bowl. Mix until completely blended.
- Sieve in the flour into the mixture. Use a spatula to gently fold and turn flour and mix until all flour is mixed in. DO NOT OVER MIX.
- You can pipe the mixture at this stage. If you want to make into a cookie dough add 3-5 tbsp of additional cake flour.
- For Small cookies - Bake for about 8 - 10 mins.
- For larger cookies - Bake in oven for about 15 - 17 mins, check and turn tray in oven around at the 12-minute mark, so the cookies can bake evenly.
- Make sure you pay attention to the slight change in measurements for the ingredients.
- Make the Chocolate Butter Cookies exactly the same way as Vanilla Butter Cookies.
- Adding the Flour & Cocoa Powder – Sieve flour and cocoa powder together to the mixture.
- Exactly the same way as the Vanilla Butter Cookies - Using a spatula to gently fold and turn flour and mix until all flour is mixed in. DO NOT OVER MIX.
- You can pipe the mixture at this stage. If you want to make into a cookie dough add 3-5 tbsp of additional cake flour.
- For Small cookies - Bake for about 8 - 10 mins.
- For larger cookies - Bake in oven for about 15 - 17 mins, check and turn tray in oven around at the 12-minute mark, so the cookies can bake evenly.
- Make sure you pay attention to the slight change in measurements for the ingredients.
- Make the Chocolate Butter Cookies exactly the same way as Vanilla Butter Cookies.
- Add ground ginger, cinnamon and cocoa powder to flour – Sieve flour and spices together to the mixture.
- Exactly the same way as the Vanilla Butter Cookies - Using a spatula to gently fold and turn flour and mix until all flour is mixed in. DO NOT OVER MIX.
- You can pipe the mixture at this stage. If you want to make into a cookie dough add 3-5 tbsp of additional cake flour.
- For Small cookies - Bake for about 8 - 10 mins.
- For larger cookies - Bake in oven for about 15 - 17 mins, check and turn tray in oven around at the 12-minute mark, so the cookies can bake evenly.
- Make sure you pay attention to the slight change in measurements for the ingredients.
- Make the Chocolate Butter Cookies exactly the same way as Vanilla Butter Cookies.
- Add Almond Extract instead of Vanilla Extract.
- Adding Almond Flour to Cake Flour – Sieve flour and almond flour together to the mixture.
- Exactly the same way as the Vanilla Butter Cookies - Using a spatula to gently fold and turn flour and mix until all flour is mixed in. DO NOT OVER MIX.
- You can pipe the mixture at this stage. If you want to make into a cookie dough add 3-5 tbsp of additional cake flour.
- For Small cookies - Bake for about 8 - 10 mins.
- For larger cookies - Bake in oven for about 15 - 17 mins, check and turn tray in oven around at the 12-minute mark, so the cookies can bake evenly.
Notes:
*Preparation time is for all cookies.
*Total baking time is for baking cookies in batches. Timing will also depend on the size of the cookies you make.
Bake Same Size Cookies Together
Smaller cookies will have a different baking time to larger cookies. So make sure you bake the same size cookie together. It will make things so much easier and lower the risk of doing under or over baked cookies.
Making Different Flavour Butter Cookies
Get organised and weigh out all of your ingredients, so they are ready to go to make your cookie dough, it will help to get a baking conveyor belt going. You will have all your cookies baked and ready for decorating in no time.
Almond Butter Cookies
If making almond butter cookies, make sure the almond flour is fine. If it is not, us a blender to grind it down further. Make sure to not over grind. Over grinding will begin to release the almond oils and the almond flour will start to clump together.
Fillings
If you are making fillings from scratch. These will move along quicker if you make these fillings in advance.
Rosette Cookies
Use a 1M or 2M open star nozzle. Pipe starting from the centre, piping only on full turn/circle. You may get about 8 – 12 cookies depending on how big you pipe the rosettes.
Give Yourself Time
Give yourself enough time to make and decorate your cookies. Make it a fun so pencil out a couple of hours or a day to enjoy some time of baking bliss!
Nutritional Info: Per Serving
