Tea Butter Cookie Recipe
How to Make Best Danish Tea Butter Cookies
by Robin Nalaka Daundaratne
Who can resist a butter cookie right? These crunchy cookies are a gift to us from Denmark. It is said that they started to make them around year 1100 at homes. At that time, these basic buttery cookies were made with only flour, butter, and sugar. Today, we have a variety of flavors and kinds made by adding vanilla, chocolate, almond flavors and formed in many shapes. Around the world they are also know as tea butter cookie as well. So, stay with baker Nalaka Daundaratne and learn how to make these tasty cookies at home.
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What Ingredients you need
Ingredient Amount
Cake Flour or all-purpose 600g
Butter 400g
(or butter: shortening at ½ : ½ )
Castor Sugar (Granulated) 200g
confectioner’s/icing sugar 100g
Whole Eggs 3
Vanilla essence 7.5ml (1 ½ tsp)
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How to Prepare
by Robin Nalaka Daundaratne
Gather a pastry bag and a star nozzle to pour the batter on to tray. However, a star nozzle is optional, and you can just use the plain bag with an opening of around 1-1 ½ cm in diameter. If, however, you cannot find a pastry bag, take a medium sized freezer bag, and make an opening at a corner. It is not the best option, but having a substitute of any sort is better than nothing, right?
Use a parchment lined baking sheet or a regular baking sheet without grease. Since the cookie had high proportion of butter, it’s unlikely to stick on to the regular paper.
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Tea Cookies Baking Method
by Robin Nalaka Daundaratne
Step 1
Take butter at room temperature and not too soft. Press with a finger and it should be just enough to dig in without effort. Not, too soft, and flowy. Now, add the butter, sugar and vanilla to your bowl. Mix them at slow speed using your paddle hook or simply hand mix by turning motion. Remember, here also we are following the rules of creaming method
Step 2
Add the eggs and carry-on mixing slowly until all ingredients are incorporated, evenly.
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Step 3
Get you prepared pastry bag and fill it up with the batter. Personally, I take about empty bag and make a bit larger opening and place our filled piping bag as a lining to give more strength to it. However, this is not an essential step to do if you have somewhat stronger looking pastry bags compares to thin flimsy ones we fine often. Ok, now, using bag method press out the batter on to your tray forming butter cookies around 1 ¼’ – 1 ½’. Pour in circular motion, each starting from the center. Remember, unlike most of other cookies, you don’t have to make larger gaps around these cookies as they are smaller, do not spread much and did not use a leavening that would increase size rapidly. So, just about a 1’-1 ½’ will do just fine.
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Step 4
Bake your Butter Tea Cookies at 375o F (190o C) for 10 minutes and you are done. Till you leave them to cool down, maybe you can take little break and start preparing pot of golden tea or even a coffee. Check how to store your cookies right to keep them longer. If you need any additional information and tips, please contact your baker Nalaka Daundaratne who is more than happy to answer your questions. Also don't forget to check almond butter cookies and sandwich cookies recipes.
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How to Store Your Danish Butter Cookies for later use
by Robin Nalaka Daundaratne
How to freeze your tea butter cookie dough
After you bag out the batter, keep the tray in the fridge for 1 hour and they will be stiff enough to maintain their shape. Now you can place them in an airtight bag to freeze them to reuse up to 3-4 months. Remember, when you close the bag, make sure to gently press and remove much air as possible to minimize the build of ice in the bag from the humidity of the encapsulated air.
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Storing your baked tea biscuits
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Store them in an air sealed jar or container to avoid humidity take away the crunchiness. If you are refrigerating, make sure to wrap them with a plastic to preserve its original crisp texture. If you are leaving them in outside make sure you use them within 4-5 days. Refrigerate for an extended life up to 7-10 days.
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Tea Cookies' Nutritional Facts
by Robin Nalaka Daundaratne
Each 1oz or 28.3grms contains
Calories - 130
Carbohydrates - 15g
Proteins - 1g
Fat - 7g
Cholesterol - 30mg
Fiber - 0g
Sodium (Na) - 70mg
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Kinds of Butter Cookies
There is a variety of butter cookies popular around the world. Almond Tea Cookies, Sandwich Cookies, Chocolate Butter cookies and Cashew Tea Cookies are examples of most admired kinds. All these cookies carry their distinct flavors along with the signature buttery taste and crispiness. While the base is Butter Cookie dough, there is only additions or adjustments of the ingredients what we learned while making Tea Butter Cookies. For today, let's learn how to make almond tea cookies and one of most common and east to make sandwich butter cookies.
How to Make Best Sandwich Tea Cookies
by Robin Nalaka Daundaratne
Sandwich cookies come in lot of different shapes and flavorful fillings. The common characteristic of all is being basic cookies. Since you know how to make Butter Cookies now, let me tell you how you can use your creativity to make Sandwich Cookies of your choice that you can enjoy with your children and family.
Ingredients and Method of Baking Cookies
Use the same ingredients list and directions give in how to make tea butter cookies to form the base cookie. Read the additional information and key points given below to form the shape of the cookies
Point 1
If you want to make sandwich butter cookies with a circular window on top exposing the filling, make a hole in the center of half of the cookies before sending to oven. Also, make sure or try your best to form them equal in size. If you find it hard, you can buy commercially prepared baking sheets with sizes and shapes are printed according to your needs.
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Point 2
After Baking, once cooled down, turnover the once without windows and place some filling of your choice starting from the center but only up to halfway of the total diameter. You can use an icing or baking bag to pour in icing or a spoon for jam. Now, pick the other cookie with the hole and place it on top while gently giving it a press for the icing to spread nicely for your sandwich cookies.
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Point 3
​If your need is to make shapes sandwich cookies, make sure to form them symmetrically as possible. Ideally, you can use cookies/baking molds that you can buy from any baking supplies store, amazon.ca, walmart, etc.
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Sandwich Cookie Fillings
You can use any filling of your choice from jam, Butter icing, custard, peanut butter, etc. Anyhow, when choosing the mid-layer, consider selecting a filling that is not too soft or fluffy like buttercream frosting. Little thicker filling will hold in place with every bite and prevent dripping off your cookies. Also, if you intend to keep your cookies at room temperature or for more than 5 days in a refrigerator, avoid using fillings that contain raw eggs despite pasteurized or not due to risk of foodborne pathogens. I would suggest using custard, jam, or basic butter icing to fill between your cookies as they all are very easy to make or find. Ha, my personal choice is cream cheese frosting and chocolate fudge icing which I find a very tasty companions with butter cookies. However, this is based on my personal choice and might not be the best for someone else. Yet, if you are like me who love to experiment and explore new horizons of taste, give it a try and you might not regret. Refer to fillings recipe section for instruction to make your filling of choice.
Storing Methods of Sandwich Cookies
by Robin Nalaka Daundaratne
Generally, follow the same 'how to freeze the dough instructions' relevant to basic Danishes given above. However, the length of the time you can keep them in room temperature primarily depends on what kind of a filling that you have used. For example, if it's anything that you made with ingredients as raw eggs and milk, it is not advised to leave outside for more than several hours. Ideally, refrigerate them if you have any leftover. For example, cream cheese fillings or custard fillings shouldn't be kept at room temperature for more than over 12hours. Whereas, jam, basic butter icing or chocolate frosting are good choices if you want to leave the cookies outside 1-2 days. Either way, you can refrigerate all kids of these cookies and keep up to 4-5days.
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Cashew Nut Cookie Recipe
How do we make Nut Tea Cookies?
Personally, I love anything with nuts and these cashew nut tea biscuits are among my favorite nutty treats. In fact, you can use any single kind or combination of any nuts measured to same final amount to make cookies of your choice.
Ingredients
To make them, follow the same ingredients and their amounts given in the basic butter cookie recipe and add finely chopped 100g of nuts (cashew nuts, peanuts, pecans, etc.). Remember, Almond cookies are slightly different as we are adding almond paste to the batter. Check out Nalaka Daundaratne’s yummy almond tea cookie recipe if you want to try them. Further, in these recipes, make sure that you only use raw nuts and avoid taking roasted ones.
Directions
Take the same steps of how to make tea butter cookies with a modification of adding your finely chopped nut at the end and mixing well with the dough.
Chocolate Chip Danish Cookies
How to Make Chocolate Chips Danish Tea Cookies
by Nalaka Daundaratne
In almost all assorted Danish butter cookie boxes we find chocolate chip Danish cookies, and everyone loves them. Now that we have learned how to make basic Danishes, let’s learn what simple changes we must make chocolate chip tea cookies. Remember, these have a signature look and taste making them quite different from traditional chocolate chip cookie recipe we learned before.
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What you need
Since this is also a variant of basic recipe, and ingredients list and amounts given above remains the same. In addition, we are going to need 75g of small cooking chocolate chips. Ideally, get much stiffer kinds for a better outcome. Usually, I take regular medium sized pieces of chocolate drops and give a slight grinding for about few 2-3 1second each pulse in my coffee grinder to get the job done. So, you don’t have to go and buy new ones if you already have any sized chips at home.
Method
Baking direction also reminds the same as the main recipe. So, follow those steps using creaming mixing method and simply combine your chocolate chips at the very end after all other ingredients are well mixed. Then, bake as instructed and enjoy as it is or by converting them to sandwich cookies using a filling of your choice. Also, remember to store your butter cookies as instructed for extended shelf-life.
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Chocolate Danishes
Making simple Danish Chocolate Tea Cookies
by Nalaka Daundaratne
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Chocolate tea cookie variant is made by simply adding 60g of cocoa powder to flour of the same plain butter cookie recipe. So, make the specific change of using cocoa as an ingredient and use the same ingredients and baking, storing and sandwiching instructions. If you like, add 50 more small chocolate chips, and change the recipe to give an extra touch. For any clarification, do contact your baker at any times. Finally, enjoy your baked delights with a glass of cold milk or a beverage of your choice.
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Thank you for visiting BakingTreats for your cookie recipe and baking information needs. We really hope you find all information and instructions useful. Further, if there are any questions, please contact your small-town baker Robin Nalaka Daundaratne by filling the contact form or directly via info@bakingtreats.ca. We invite you to subscribe to bakingtreats.ca newsletter for updates and new recipes to reach right into inbox. Happy baking!
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