This recipe makes a butter cookie that simply melts in your mouth and is incredibly classy and soft. One half of the dough makes a butter cookie with sugar, while the other half is unsugared and has a pecan half on top. For a lower yield, this recipe can easily be cut in half, but the cookies will still go fast. No one can stop eating them, so you won’t regret creating a big quantity. The recipe is simpler than it appears to be. Just be cautious when slicing the cookies.
| Prep Time: | 1 hr |
| Cook Time: | 25 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 day 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 day 1 hr 45 mins |
| Servings: | 176 |
| Yield: | 14 1/2 dozen cookies |
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups white sugar (Optional)
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks
- 1 egg, beaten
- 3 tablespoons coarse sugar crystals (Optional)
- 88 pecan halves, toasted
- 1 tablespoon coarse sugar crystals for sprinkling (Optional)
Instructions
- Sift the flour and white sugar together in a mixing bowl, and stir in 1 egg and the vanilla extract until well combined. Using a pastry cutter, cut the cold butter into the mixture until it resembles coarse cornmeal. Shape the dough into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
- Divide the dough in half, and roll into two 11-inch-long logs. Wrap one of the logs in waxed paper and then plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight. Place 3 tablespoons of coarse sugar crystals on a flat plate. Brush the second log with beaten egg, and roll it in the sugar crystals, coating it thickly. Carefully wrap the sugared log in plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight. (See Cook’s Note.)
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) and line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Cut the unsugared log of dough into round slices about 1/8-inch thick, and place the rounds onto the prepared baking sheets, about 1/2-inch apart. Top each round with a pecan half. Cut the sugared log of dough into 1/8-inch thick slices, and place them onto prepared baking sheets. Sprinkle each sugared cookie with more coarse sugar crystals, if desired.
- Place one baking sheet of cookies at a time into the preheated oven, and bake until the edges barely turn golden, 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the cookies to wire racks to cool.
- After the logs of dough are wrapped and ready to chill, they may be frozen and baked later.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 38 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 4 g |
| Cholesterol | 6 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Protein | 0 g |
| Saturated Fat | 1 g |
| Sodium | 1 mg |
| Sugars | 2 g |
| Fat | 2 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
After reading reviews used 2eggs and 3tsp vanilla. Not sure what went wrong? The butter just melted onto the cookie sheet! I will try again without changes. Any suggestions?
Luckily, I read the reviews before trying this recipe for the first time because I too, had to add another egg and a little more vanilla so that the dough would even stick together. After sticking the slices together, I ended up with only 21 cookies. They would have been big cookies, but I was about to serve them at my Danish grandpa’s 98th birthday party. So after cutting them in half to double the batch, they still ended up a nice size. After cooling for only a few minutes, they were unexpectedly slightly crunchy. I’m still not sure why you have to make two separate “logs” and then put the slices together. I’m going to experiment with the next batch and see if they taste the same if I just add a third egg and a little more coarse sugar to all of the dough and just place the pecans on top right before baking. It’s too bad this recipe is kind of confusing (88 pecans? Where did that number come from?). But I give it five stars because they taste so delicious. They taste like scones, only better. They go great with coffee!! Oh, and my Danish Grandpa and relatives loved them too!!
Just finished making this recipe. I didn’t have a problem with mixing the dough it was the baking that wasn’t right. Recommend to bake at 350 for 10 mins then turn cookies over and bake 4 more minutes. Cookie was delicious .
I am the original poster of this recipe. The crumbliness of the dough is what makes the crisp texture of the cookie when it is baked. If you mix the dough when the kitchen is hot,the dough is less crumbly and easier to mix. I usually mix it after I’ve spent the first part of the day baking other cookies. Then, when baking the butter cookie, I always do it first in the morning, when the kitchen is cold. Hope this helps.
The dough was impossibly crumbly to even try to form a ball let alone roll it into a log. I added an egg and another teaspoon of vanilla and then everything was fine and the cookies were very good.
This dough can be a bit crumbly, but the cookies are amazing! Well worth the mess. 🙂
Really good! Amazing recipe! Melts on your mouth instantly!