Recipe: Festive Butter Cookies

Some of you may know this… I came to the US when I was 6 years old. My parents immigrated from China to the US to give me more opportunities, hoping that I’d grow up happier and thrive. 

My parents have made huge personal sacrifices when I was young to give me the best shot at life. I’ve only recently really sat on that concept and feel such a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude for them. How do you repay that kind of love? I think that’s part of the reason why I work so hard. Aside from making them proud I don’t want them to ever have to worry about me making a living. Honestly, at this point I just want my parents to enjoy their lives as much as possible.

For almost every holiday season in the last decade, I’ve dedicated my skills to creating joy for other families. I spent November and December leading up to Christmas baking cookies for friends, neighbors, & strangers. And while that was incredibly gratifying, the “cost” to me was time with my family and creating beautiful things for my loved ones. This is the busiest season for bakers so please give the bakers in your life extra love this season as they work their butts off trying to spread joy through their creations. 

This year, I’m not taking any orders. I’m not selling any cookies. I’m not planning any flash sales – I will be baking EXCLUSIVELY for my friends/family/loved ones and I’m thrilled about it 🙂

I’m trying to design a ‘holiday cookie crate’ to ship (hello Covid, we’re not getting together with folks this season), and wanted to include some of my family’s favorite treats…

High on that list are butter cookies. My dad has a sweet tooth and butter cookies are something we enjoyed as the occasional treat in the house. 

So I scoured the internet for butter cookies recipes. I landed on a few and this one stood out as my fav, so what I’m sharing below is adapted from recipes by myself (starting with our shortbread recipe base, and Cooking Tree on youtube)  – This recipe doubles and triples nicely for large batches, but if you’re making a lot of dough, make sure to only put a small amount in your piping bag at once or else you’ll overwork the dough and get it too warm… And what happens when it’s too warm? It’s gonna end up with more spread than there already is due to all the fat in the recipe 🙂

Be sure to watch the video – Recipe is written down below!

PS- My adorable sweatshirt in this video is from The Doughmestic Cookie – sooo cute and comfortable! It was gifted to me by @thebentokitchen

Recipe: Piped Butter Cookies
Yields approx. 4 doz 1.25-inch diameter cookies. 

Ingredients:

• 8 oz Salted Butter (use a good quality one like Kerrygold, you’ll really taste it in this cookie!) — This is usually 2 standard american sticks of butter
• 100 grams of powdered sugar
• 1 large egg, room temp (about 50 grams)
• 250 grams SIFTED all-purpose flour
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract OR 15 grams vanilla bean paste OR another flavor of your choice.. keep the base simple to allow that butter flavor to shine

Equipment:

• Large piping bags with piping tip of choice, I used a 1M tip from Wilton, but you can use something else!
  • You can alternatively double up on MEDIUM size piping bags from our SHOP 
  • This project can really utilize those strong, reusable piping bags like THESE tpu ones
• Spatula
• Mixing bowl
• Food scale – Read about why we weigh ingredients are used HERE
• Sieve – to sift your flour and powdered sugar if needed

Method:

• Allow your butter to come to room temp (watch video for what this means, can’t be too wet)
• Combine powdered sugar and butter, mix well.
• Add in flavorings, egg, mix well to combine, you want to make sure that egg is FULLY incorporated! I missed showing this step in the video 🙁 Adding the egg, just like adding the vanilla, will cause the mixture to curdle a bit at the beginning, but keep mixing, I promise you it will come together (as long as your ingredients are room temp!)
• Add in SIFTED flour
• Place mixture in a piping bag fitted with your tip of choice, being sure to only fill halfway to make it easier to squeeze the dough out
  • TIP: We doubled up our MEDIUM size piping bags from our shop — our piping bags are generally used to pipe icing and buttercream, and are quite strong already, but because this dough is particularly thick, I double up to prevent bags from bulging or busting 🙂
• Pipe into consistent shapes so that they bake evenly — pipe for height as the dough will settle a bit during the bake
• Right after piping is a great time to add sprinkles!
• Place in freezer for 15-30 min. (up to a day so it doesn’t dry out– you can pipe, freeze on sheet and then move them to another airtight container to freeze the dough for up to 2 months to bake “on demand”)
• Bake in an oven pre-heated to 360 degrees for 12-16 minutes (adjust based on oven, cookie size, and “doneness” preferences) until lightly golden brown. Rotate your pans halfway if necessary for an even bake. If you want them crisp all the way through, bake for an additional 5 minutes.
• Allow to cool completely before decorating (i.e drizzling with chocolate or sandwiching)
• Cookies may be stored in an airtight container for 7 days or frozen for 2 months
• The dough itself can also be frozen (make sure to thaw on the counter until it’s pipe-able) before piping and baking

Tips, Tricks, Modifications:

• Addition of chocolate, jam, dried fruits/nuts etc. really change up the cookie– make one base, flavor it differently or use different add ins– almost a whole new cookie!
• If you find your batter too loose and oozing all over the place during the bake, omit a bit of the egg mixture (i.e. beat the egg, omit 10 grams of it), alternatively, your starting-state butter might be too soft
• Cookies are still spreading? Be sure to use an OVEN THERMOMETER — this will tell you the actual temp of your oven. If temp is too low, your butter will melt out causing ooze and spread before your cookie get a chance to set up.

Hope you try these out! Don’t forget to tag us @borderlandsbakery if you follow our recipe! Let us know below if you have any questions!