Traditional German Butterplätzchen

Instructions

About the Ingredients

• 1kg sugar (should be common refined sugar, if you want cane sugar, make sure its crystals are as small as possible)

• 2kg butter (good butter that tastes good, because this is what the final Butterplätzchen is going to taste like)

• 3kg flour (finely ground wheat or spelt flour, just make sure it has proper gluten-properties)

• 4 medium-sized eggs (these make sure the dough will be rollable)

• 10-20g salt (depending on the strength of your salt)

• A healthy amount of fresh vanilla mark (you can also mix up the entire vanilla bean together with the sugar)

The Dough

Mix everything but the flour together in a bowl. The butter must not be too warm. Regularly put the bowl back into the fridge and wait 10-20 minutes so the butter can cool down again. This is very important so the final Butterplätzchen keep their shape and fat doesn't stay oily and separated. Mix until all butter is smoothly homogenized with the sugar and no flakes or bricks of butter are identifiable.

Add the sieved flour and mix for as short as possible, just as long so all the flour is homogenous with the butter-sugar-mixture and it forms a nice, smooth dough. Again, be careful the dough doesn't get too warm! This step should take just 2-3 minutes so all the flour is incorporated.

Leave in the fridge for at least 16 hours.

All the Creativity

Slice the dough into comfortable pieces. Process the dough quickly until smooth and tender. Just like throughout the dough creation, the dough must not get too warm, so process it just enough for it to be flattened. Roll each piece of dough nicely flat and even. Use any shapes to cut out your Butterplätzchen.

If you want to add marmelade / jam inbetween two layers of Butterplätzchen, make sure to boil and reduce the jam firstly so it doesn't reduce further in the oven (yes, you put the jam on & bake it before the Butterplätzchen go into the oven!).

The Baking

Bake for 8-10 mins on 180-190°C so they have nice, slightly golden-brown edges / corners. When you take the Butterplätzchen out of the oven, it is completely normal they are a little "flappy". They will harden as they cool down.