Recipe for Christmas butter cookies
Vanilla Wreaths
This vanilla butter christmas cookie is one of the most traditional danish christmas cookies and I am about to share the recipe with you. The vanilla wreaths gets the name from the main spice and from the shape of the cookie. These christmas butter cookies are very easy and fast to make and they are bound to be enjoyed by the entire family.
Children especially tend to love the vanilla cookies, because of the shape. It is fun to loop the vanilla wreath around your finger while eating the cookie. Furthermore the taste is mild and sweet which most children appreciate.
If you want a go at making these yummy vanilla butter christmas cookies, then read on! :)
All pictures on this lens are mine. Please do not use them without my permission.
A small tip before you start. Make sure that you have a good bowl that can handle being put in the fridge. Also make sure you have made room for the bowl before you start baking.
Ingredients
- 250 g Sugar
- 1 Egg
- 500 g Flour
- 2 (or 3) Vanilla beans
- 100 g finely chopped almonds
- 300 g butter
- Quater of a teaspoon Baking Powder
Instructions
- Start off by boiling some water. When the water is heated put the almonds into it. Once the almonds has soaked in the warm water for a couple of minutes you will be able to remove the skin from them. When all the almonds are prepared, chop them very fine and put them aside for the moment. (You can also buy pre-chopped almonds if you are in a rush).
- Now take the vanilla bean and cut it open with a knife. Scrape the tine black seeds out and mix them with the flour and the baking powder. If you really like vanilla I can recommend using the content of three beans. Put the butter in and mix it together. A nice tip here is to use a butter knife to cut it into the dough so it is easier to combine the ingredients.
- Take another bowl and mix the egg and the sugar. Whip it until it is almost white. Once this is done add it to the main dough and mix it all togeher. Finally add your chopped almonds and knead the dough thoroughly. (this part is quite messy and sticky, but it smells amazing!)
- When you have kneaded the dough put it back into the bowl and cover it. I usually use cling film for this. Put the dough in the fridge and leave it there for the next 6 hours.
- Now comes the fun part. To get the nice little notches in the finished christmas butter cookie you need either a meat mincer with a star shaped outlet or a specially designed instrument for cookies. Once you have decided on your "weapon" of choice fill it with the Vanilla dough and start creating strings of dough of approximately 8-10 centimeter lenghts(3.1-3.9 inches).
- If you don't have any of the instruments you can also just roll the dough out to small sausages and create rings like that.
- Now place the dough rings on a baking paper covered oven plate and put them in an oven preheated to 180 degrees celcius(356 Fahrenheit) for 10 minutes.
- That's it. Enjoy your Christmas butter cookies for the entire holiday season.
Premade Danish Butter cookies - If you don't have time to bake yourself.
Christmas can be a hectic time and there is not always time to bake everything on your own. If that is the case these jars of premade danish butter cookies offers a great alternative to the self-made ones. And then you have more time to eat and enjoy the cookies with your family!
As an added bonus all of these comes in beautiful reusable tin jars decorated with lovely pictures.
The process of making Vanilla Wreaths
Christmas butter cookie pictures
It is easier to visualize the baking process if you have a couple of pictures to go by.
Here is the plate with the butter cookies before they are baked.
Cookies straight from the oven.
A pile of fresh Christmas butter, vanilla cookies. Yum! :)
Enjoy your christmas butter cookies with your friends
Share the Vanilla wreaths with your loved ones.
I hope you will enjoy this recipe and maybe even add it to your arsenal of Christmas cookies. I know Vanilla wreaths are very popular in my family and it seems it is no different amongst my friends and colleagues. I brought an entire box full to work and returned home with only a fourth of the cookies left. Christmas is about sharing though and it is awesome to see how happy you can make others, just by bringing a bit of Christmas spirit.
The cookie jar after being invaded by cookie hungry co-workers.
