Best Ever Butter Cookie

I’ve been making these butter cookies every Christmas for over 10 years.  They are the best – simple, buttery, and very addictive.  My friends are huge fans – some would say these are their favorite out of all the cookies I make.  The secret ingredient is the vanilla syrup – instead of using vanilla extract, I use vanilla syrup that coffee shops use to flavor their coffee.  I used to decorate these cookies with icing, but now I prefer to sprinkle decorations before baking.

Butter Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup butter

1 ¼ cup sifted icing sugar

2 Tablespoon vanilla syrup

1 egg

2 ½ cups flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

Directions

1.       Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.

2.       Beat in vanilla syrup and eggs.

3.       Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.  Gradually add into butter mixture.

4.       Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 3 hours or overnight. You can also freeze the dough for up to 6 months.

5.       To bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

6.       Roll out dough to ¼ inch thickness or less, and cut shapes with cookie cutters.

7.       Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and add decorations (if desired).

8.       Bake for 4-6 minutes, or until the edges are slightly golden.

9.       If decorating with royal icing, ice after the cookies have cooled completely. 

Before baking.

I made sent some of these cookies to my friend in Toronto.  Here’s how I packaged them.

All ready for more newspaper to cushion the cookies.

Verdict: Delicious as always! Even better the next day as the flavours become more prominent.