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These tender Danish Butter Cookies are dipped in chocolate and decorated with your favorite sprinkles. They’re melt-in-your-mouth delicious and super easy to make!
These cookies are wonderfully buttery and tender – especially after sitting for a day. They are actually perfect for making ahead for that reason. They’re even better the day AFTER making them!
The cookie dough comes together quickly, too. There’s no need to refrigerate it and no need to make cookie dough balls. Just pipe the cookies onto the pan and bake. Super quick and easy!
I’m a lover of any cookie dipped in chocolate, and these are no exception. The chocolate adds flavor and texture to the cookies and helps seal in their moisture so they stay fresh for longer. I added red, green and silver sprinkles to these cookies to give them a festive Christmas flair!
I would describe butter cookies as a cross between a cutout sugar cookie and shortbread. Sugar cookies are generally a little softer and use a leavening agent, which these don’t. But shortbread is often more dry and crumbly, and it doesn’t use egg.
With the addition of the egg to these cookies, they are more tender and don’t fall apart when you bite into them. Instead, they melt in your mouth. So, they’re kind of a mix between the two cookies.
These butter cookies are perfect if you have a family where some like cookies that are more crunchy and some like cookies that are more soft. These fall right in the middle as long as you don’t over bake them.
You only need 8 ingredients to make these buttery, chocolatey cookies. I’m willing to bet that you already have them all on hand!
- Unsalted Butter: Bring your butter to room temperature.
- Granulated Sugar
- Egg
- Vanilla Extract
- All-Purpose Flour: I recommend using a food scale to weigh your flour in order to avoid over-measuring it.
- Salt
- Milk
- Melting Chocolate
- Sprinkles: If desired, add your favorite sprinkles onto the chocolate part of your cookies.
These cookies are not only easy to make, but it’s also really easy to make them look good. They’re piped onto the baking pan rather than scooped, and you can use a fancy piping tip to give them a cool pattern!
- Prepare for Baking: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
- Cream Butter & Sugar: Cream the butter and sugar together in a large mixer bowl on medium speed until light in color and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. You should be able to see the mixture lighten in color and get a creamy texture and know it’s ready.
- Add Egg & Vanilla: Add the egg and mix until well combined. Then, add the vanilla extract and mix until well combined.
- Add Flour & Salt: Add the flour and salt and mix until the dough is just combined, then remove the bowl from the mixer and finish combining with a rubber spatula, if needed. Do not over mix.
- If Needed, Add Milk: Add milk a teaspoon at a time, as needed, to get the dough to a pipeable consistency. The best way to test this is to put a little bit in a piping bag and see if it pipes. You don’t want to add milk if you don’t need it, because then the cookies will spread more.
- Pipe Cookies: Pipe the cookies onto the prepared baking sheet. I used Ateco tip 825 and found that to be the best size. I recommend an open star tip, as opposed to a closed star. You don’t want it to be too big or your cookies will spread more.
- Bake: Bake the cookies for about 8-10 minutes, or just before they turn golden on the edges. Timing can vary by oven as well as the size of your piping tip and the size of cookie it makes.
- Let Cool: Remove your cookies from the oven and allow them to cool on the baking sheet for 2-3 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
- Melt Chocolate: To dip the cookies in chocolate, melt the chocolate according to the package directions.
- Dip Cookies: Dip about half of each cookie into the chocolate and then shake off the excess. Place the cookies on parchment paper to dry and add the sprinkles of your choice, if desired.
Tips for Making Ahead
These cookies are great to make in advance because they taste even better a day or two after they’re made! Once the chocolate has hardened onto the cookies, store them in an airtight container at room temperature. You can make them up to a week ahead of time, but I recommend making them one or two days in advance for the best results.
- Use an Open Star Piping Tip: An open star tip produces a better ridge than a closed star, which makes a deeper ridge that tends to kind of fall over when baking and not hold it’s shape. If you can find the Ateco 825 tip or have time to order it, I definitely recommend it. If you can’t get the Ateco 825 tip, I recommend going a touch smaller.
- Test Before Piping: Before adding any milk to your dough, check to see if it’s the right consistency for piping by adding a small amount of dough into the piping bag and testing it. If it’s too thick, add a teaspoon of milk at a time and keep testing the dough.
- Add Course Sugar: If sprinkles aren’t your thing, you can sprinkle some coarse sugar over your cookies instead.
- Make Them Colorful: If you’re using white chocolate for your cookies, you can add a drop or two of gel icing color to make them really pop or get colored candy melts!
Once the chocolate has set on your cookies, store them in an airtight container on the counter. They’re best if eaten within 5-7 days. I recommend saving at least a few cookies for the day after you bake them, because they taste even better after sitting overnight!
These cookies are freezer-friendly if you want to store them long-term. You can store the cookies with the chocolate and sprinkles already on or add them later so that they look more fresh. Frozen butter cookies will last for up to 3 months! Just thaw them out in the fridge before enjoying.
Buttery Classic Spritz Cookies
Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies
Cutout Sugar Cookies
Italian Ricotta Cookies
Peanut Butter Blossoms
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
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- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 30
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: Danish
Description
These tender Homemade Butter Cookies are dipped in chocolate and decorated with your favorite sprinkles. They’re melt-in-your-mouth delicious and super easy to make!
Ingredients
- 1 cup (224g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2/3 cup (138) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cups (293g) all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1–3 tsp milk
- 6–8 oz melting chocolate
- Sprinkles, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
- Cream the butter and sugar together in a large mixer bowl on medium speed until light in color and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. You should be able to see the mixture lighten in color and get a creamy texture and know it’s ready.
- Add the egg and mix until well combined.
- Add the vanilla extract and mix until well combined.
- Add the flour and salt and mix until the dough is just combined, then remove the bowl from the mixer and finish combining with a rubber spatula, if needed. Do not over mix.
- Add milk a teaspoon at a time as needed to get a pipeable consistency. The best way to test this is to put a little bit in a piping bag and see if it pipes. You don’t want to add milk if you don’t need it, because then the cookies will spread more.
- Pipe the cookies onto the prepared baking sheet. I used Ateco tip 825 and found that to be the best size. I recommend an open star tip, as opposed to a closed star. You don’t want it to be too big or your cookies will spread more.
- Bake cookies for about 8-10 minutes, or just before they turn golden on the edges. Timing can vary by oven as well as the size of your piping tip and the size of cookie it makes.
- Remove cookies from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for 2-3 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
- To dip the cookies in chocolate, melt the chocolate according to the package directions.
- Dip about half of each cookie into the chocolate and then shake off the excess. Place on parchment paper to dry and add the sprinkles of your choice, if desired.
Notes
Be careful not to over measure your flour. Too much flour can lead to a thick cookie dough that’s hard to pipe and dry cookies. A food scale is always the best way to ensure it’s accurate.
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 147
- Sugar: 8.7 g
- Sodium: 48.7 mg
- Fat: 8.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 15.9 g
- Protein: 1.7 g
- Cholesterol: 24 mg
Keywords: butter cookies recipe, danish butter cookies recipe, how to make butter cookies, chocolate dipped cookies, easy cookies recipe, danish cookies, christmas cookies
Do these have to be piped or can I roll these? Chill them for a few then place them on my cookie sheet. Thank you for your time.
You don’t have to pipe them, but they don’t really spread. So you can roll the cookie dough into a log and slice and bake them or something along those lines. You don’t want to roll them into balls. They won’t spread. I hope that helps!
I use a lot of your recipes but this one was very frustrating. Difficult getting consistency to pipe added milk and still very hard. Also baking them they did spread, I don’t know if it was flour measurement or they were overmixed.
★★
It’s very hard to say what may have been the issue from a distance, but here are a couple thoughts. Often people are surprised by how thick cookie dough has to be in order to make a cookie that doesn’t spread. It’s possible you added too much milk. What piping tools did you use? Which piping tip? The size of the tip could have had an affect on how difficult it seemed to pipe the dough. Also, the spread could be from the milk. But also, I just read yesterday that people have been have issues with store brand butters lately and that the quality isn’t great and it’s causing inconsistency with baking. Depending on the brand of butter you used, you may want to try another one. I use challenge butter.
Can I use a cookie press instead of piping them?
Here is my spritz cookie recipe, which uses a cookie press. The recipes are quite similar, but I might go with that one just to be safe.
How can I tell when the cookies are done but before they are golden brown?
One way to tell is that they should look matte rather than have a sheen.
Hi, what if I only have salted butter, do I just omit the extra salt from the recipe? Thanks.
I just made these for the first time and WOW. They are really delicious! I only had the wilton 1M on hand and I probably added a tad bit too much milk (two teaspoons) when probably none was needed. I will recheck next time. THEY ARE SO GOOD EVERYONE MAKE THEM RIGHT NOW. Gonna add some espresso to my chocolate! Woohoo! Thank you so much.
★★★★★
How much should 2 1/2 cups of flour weigh on a scale?
325g