locusimperium:
A few years ago, when I was living in the housing co-op and looking for a quick cookie recipe, I came across a blog post for something calledĀ āNorwegian Christmas butter squares.ā Iād never found anything like it before: it created rich, buttery and chewy cookies, like a vastly superior version of the holiday sugar cookies Iād eaten growing up. About a year ago I went looking for the recipe again, and failed to find it. The blog had been taken down, and it sent me into momentary panic.Ā
Luckily, I remembered enough to find it on the Wayback Machine, and quickly copied it into a file that Iāve saved ever since. I probably make these cookies about once a month, and they last about five days around my voracious husband - theyāre fantastic with a cup of bitter coffee or tea. Iām skeptical that there is something distinctively Norwegian about these cookies, but they do seem like the perfect thing to eat on a cold day.Ā
Norwegian Christmas Butter Squares
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 egg 1 cup sugar 2 cups flour 1 tsp vanilla Ā½ tsp salt Turbinado/ Raw Sugar for dusting
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Chill a 9x13ā³ baking pan in the freezer. Do not grease the pan.
Using a mixer, blend the butter, egg, sugar, and salt together until it is creamy. Ā Add the flour and vanilla and mix using your hands until the mixture holds together in large clumps. If it seems overly soft, add a little extra flour.Ā
Using your hands, press the dough out onto the chilled and ungreased baking sheet until it is even and Ā¼ inch thick. Ā Dust the top of the cookies evenly with raw sugar.
Bake at 400 degrees until the edges turn a golden brown, about 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven. Let cool for about five minutes before cutting the cooked dough into squares. Remove the squares from the warm pan using a spatula.
So I tried this recipe.
And it is GREAT.
It basically makes the platonic ideal of commercial sugar cookies, only in bar form. When I give them to people (which I do a lot, because this is one of those simple recipes where the results seem very impressive), I just tell them theyāre sugar cookie bars.
Life hack: add white chocolate chips and sea salt
I made these today for the equinox with sea salt caramel chips and they are simply amazing. Letās see how long they last with six people in the house!
Noting for later (as we need more butter for this, and probably wonāt do a grocery shopping till the weekend).
The OP version of this has become my go-to cookie for basically all things and I have a whole cohort of friends and colleagues who would murder each other to get them. Havenāt tried any add ons yet, since the base recipe is SO GOOD.
