Butterstangerl Cookies

Portions

70-80 Cookies

Difficulty

Medium

Resting time

30 minutes

Cooking time

30-40 minutes

These cookies are a tradition in Markus’ family. His great-aunt Pepi was preparing them every year. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to meet her and tried her cookies and cakes, but she still lives through her recipes. This special recipe, has a secret ingredient, that maybe will sound strange to you, but it makes the cookies taste so soft and yummy. I made two different glazes for you to choose. The original made by Pepi was the baked one, but I also prepare them with a Royal Icing glaze style. You can decide which one to prepare. These cookies are specially delicious when they are just out of the oven, but they also last many days in a air-tight food container.

Ingredients

  • 150 g flour
  • 150 g soft butter (ideally lactose-free butter)
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tbsp apple vinegar
  • 1/2 tbsp water
  • Pinch of salt

Glaze:

  • 1 egg white
  • 150 g icing (powdered) sugar
  • 1/2 tsp lemon juice

Extra:

  • Extra flour for when you roll out the dough

Instructions

  1. Make sure the butter is soft.
  2. Mix the butter, egg yolk, vinegar and the water with a hand mixer or a kitchen machine. Add the flour and the pinch of salt and mix until you get a soft dough. Wrap it and put on the fridge for approx. 30 minutes.
  3. In the meantime, prepare the glaze of your choice (read the instructions below).
  4. Take the dough out of the fridge and let it rest for 5 minutes. Clean an area of your kitchen, where you can roll out your dough and cut your cookies. Put some flour on that area (you don’t need much), grab some piece of the dough and roll it out with a rolling pin to a 3 to 5 mm high. Cut your dough with a pastry cutter wheel into square or rectangular shapes.
  5. Preheat the oven to 160°-170°C.
  6. Put a baking paper on your baking tray. To put your cookies on the baking paper, use a flat tool (*with a bit of flour on it, to not destroy the form of the cookie) and carefully take the cookie and place them on the baking paper. *If you decide to use the “baked” glaze, add it now.
  7. Bake the cookies for approx. 10 minutes until they are light gold (don’t let them get too golden). Take them out of the oven, and let them rest for some minutes. *If you decide to use the “Royal icing” glaze, add it now.

For the “baked” glaze:

  1. Sift the icing (powdered) sugar.
  2. Mix in a bowl the egg white, the drop of lemon juice and the sugar. Mix it with a fork or a whisk until you get a smooth mixture. If it’s too liquid you will have to add more sugar.
  3. Before you put the cookies in the oven, add a very small amount of glaze to each cookie. You will have to be quick to start baking the cookies, because the glaze can spread easily. Bake the cookies for aprox. 10 minutes, the glaze will get a pinkish colour (it can happen that the cookies start “moving” a bit while baking, it is normal and that means they are almost ready). The cookie shouldn’t be too golden. Take them out of the oven and let them rest.

For the Royal Icing glaze:

  1. Sift the icing (powdered) sugar.
  2. Beat the egg white with a hand mixer for a few seconds and start adding all the sugar. Add the drop of lemon juice and beat until you get a smooth mixture. This glaze should be thick, it should’t move much.
  3. Once the cookies are out of the oven and you let them rest for two minutes, add with a little spoon a bit of glaze to each cookie and wait until it gets hard.

 

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