Butter Cookies
Crisp, melt-in-your-mouth, sugar-edged
Buttery, crisp, melt-in-your-mouth butter cookies made with simple ingredients — lightly coated with sugar and baked until the edges are beautifully golden.
Ingredients
- 2 cups (240 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 cup (227 g) unsalted butter, softened
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 large egg yolks
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup (66 g) sanding sugar or coarse sugar, for rolling
Nutrition is an estimate per serving.
Method
- Beat the softened butter, granulated sugar and salt until light and fluffy.
- Add the egg yolks and vanilla; mix until smooth.
- Gradually add the flour and mix just until a soft dough forms. Don't overmix.
- Shape into a long, even log, wrap tightly in parchment and chill at least 1 hour.
- Roll the chilled log in sanding sugar, then slice into ¾-inch rounds.
- Place on a parchment-lined sheet and bake at 175 °C / 350 °F for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are just turning golden.
- Cool completely.
Watch it made
Notes on this recipe
Yolks only, and what that does
Two egg yolks and no whites is a deliberate choice. Whites are mostly water and protein; they add moisture and toughness, both wrong for a short, crumbly butter cookie. Yolks bring fat and emulsifiers instead, which is why these are rich and sandy rather than chewy. It is the single thing separating a butter cookie from a sugar cookie.
Creaming is where the lift comes from
There is no raising agent in this recipe at all. Everything that stops these being flat and dense comes from the air beaten into the butter and sugar at the start. Light and fluffy is a literal instruction — three or four minutes with the butter properly softened, not straight from the fridge and not melting.
An hour in the fridge, minimum
The log has to be genuinely firm to slice into clean three-quarter-inch rounds. Soft dough compresses under the knife and gives you ovals with a flat side. Chilled butter also melts slower in the oven, so the cookies hold their edges instead of spreading into each other. Roll the log in sanding sugar after chilling but before slicing, so the cut faces stay clean.
Barely golden at the edges
These should come out looking almost unbaked, with just a hint of colour where they met the tray. Butter cookies carry on firming as they cool, and a cookie that looks properly golden in the oven will be hard once cold. Airtight for a week. The logs freeze for three months and slice straight from frozen with a minute or two added.
