Butter Cookies

If you've been searching for the best melt-in-your-mouth cookie recipe, then today's your lucky day. My butter cookies come together with only a few ingredients, but they are beyond delicious. Hey, you're watching Preppy Kitchen, where I, John Kanell, teach you how to make delicious homemade dishes to share with your family and friends. These butter cookies will be ready before you know it. So let's get started. First off, measure out two cups, or 240 grams, of all-purpose flour. I'm using a scale, but if you're not, just fluff the flour up, sprinkle it into your cup, and level it off, it's gonna be fairly accurate as well. Yep, just set that aside for later. Now we're gonna cream up one cup, or 226 grams, of unsalted butter at room temperature. If you're wondering why recipes always ask for unsalted butter, but then have you put salt back in, you're like, what's wrong with you? It's just because, depending on where you are and what brand of butter you use, they're either a little bit more salty or a little bit less salty, and people who make recipes like me like to have consistent results, so you all have a good time when you bake things up. All right, cream it up just a little bit first. Now I'm adding in my half teaspoon of salt. Once your butter is creamed up, add that half cup, or 100 grams, of granulated sugar. These cookies are not super sweet, they are just right. Before things really get going, it's never a bad idea to scrape your bowl down. Scrape, scrape, scrape. Okay, now cream it up until it's light and fluffy. Okay, that looks pretty good. This recipe needs two egg yolks, no whites, just the yolks. So separate them out. You can save the whites for a less delicious omelet in the morning if you want, or you could make some meringues, mm. Set the whites aside, and now we're gonna add in the two yolks and two teaspoons of a nice vanilla extract while it's mixing on medium. Okay, two yolks, one at a time, and your second-to-last scrape is happening right now. Now, one last mix. Now it's time to add the flour in, and we're just gonna mix it until combined on low. These cookies are so quick and easy. If they're for a holiday platter, yes. If they're for every day, yes to that too. You can make the dough and store it in your freezer, and then just slice it and go, ooh. Okay, once things are basically combined, you're going to get that paddle out of there, and just finish it off by hand. Just look around. What's inside? Is there some crumbly bits? I don't like that. I want it to be a pretty cohesive cookie. Dough is done, and now it's time for the fun part. Let's set this aside and clean our surface off. Now we're just gonna roll our dough out on the counter. This is a really fun cut cookie, and we're gonna do some extra rolling afterwards, which you'll see. First, with your clean hands on a clean surface, you can go ahead and just give this a knead or two. Right now the dough's pretty soft. That's unacceptable. I need it to be chilled, so plop it out onto some parchment paper here, and just shape it into a log. Grab a used paper towel, core, slice it down the middle. Now we're going to roll our log in the parchment paper. Plop this into your support. You don't want the dough to dry out on the sides where it's exposed, so either use a little bit of plastic foil, or if there's room, which I don't have, you could just fold the paper over. Pop this into the fridge to chill for at least an hour. Overnight's nice too. It could also spend a little bit of time in the freezer, by the way, to chill quicker. And then once it's nice and firm, we'll be back. Once your dough's all chilled up, what you can do is get it out of there. It's not gonna be a perfect log. If it bothers you, just roll, roll, roll, and now it's all pliable and perfect. Before it was too mushy and just not a good time. Okay, just get any of those imperfections out that bother you before it starts warming up too much. And now we're gonna sprinkle some sugar onto the surface of our counter. I'm using sanding sugar, so it's basically like sprinkles, but it's just sugar. You can find sanding sugar in the baking section of most grocery stores or online too. So sprinkle, sprinkle. And now, before things get too warm, roll this in the sanding sugar. And then just really press to get that sugar in there. You want it completely embedded, not just hanging on the side. Okay, that looks pretty good to me. Gonna clear this off, get a cutting board out, and slice, slice, slice. So messy. Transfer your dough to someplace you feel comfortable cutting. I do not wanna cut on this countertop. With confidence, I'm gonna pretend I am right-handed for you right now. That's a thin one. You probably want it just a little bit thicker, maybe 3 1⁄4 of an inch. And yes, you can cut what you want and freeze or refrigerate the rest for later. I'm gonna cut them all right now. Okay, line a baking sheet with either parchment paper or silicone, and then place your butter cookies out. Give them some room to breathe. They're not really gonna spread very much at all, but you want some air circulating and a nice, even bake. These'll bake at 350 Fahrenheit for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges are just, just turning golden brown. They're not gonna be brown. They're almost there. They'll continue to set after you get them out of the oven. But for now, it's time to bake, bake, bake. In you go. There's something so comforting about a butter cookie, that buttery, melt-in-your-mouth taste with a little bit of crunch from the sanding sugar on the outside and the sparkle when you hold it in your hand. I hope you get a chance to make this recipe. And if you like this video, check out my cookie playlist. All my favorite cookies in one playlist for you. But now, it's time for a bite. That cookie was so good. It melts in your mouth, but the sanding sugar's like crunch, crunch, crunch. I'm still here, and that's good. I like that. If you like this recipe, hit that like button and subscribe, and I'll see you in the next cookie video.