Good Irish butter is the starting point for chef Lydia Shire’s butter crunch cookies. Follow the famed chef’s lead and melt the dairy down with sugar before freezing it into a homemade toffee with a light and buttery, well, crunch. Fold the candy into your cookie dough for an irresistible upgrade to your usual holiday dessert.
Butter Crunch Cookies
Details
Yields: 6-7 dozen
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups Irish butter (unsalted)
- 3 1/2 cups white sugar
- 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
- 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 3 tablespoons light corn syrup
- 5 cups all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. In a saucepan, melt 1 cup of butter with 2 cups of white sugar and a pinch of salt. Whisk until golden and then pour into a 13x9 pan lined with parchment paper. Smooth the mixture and place in the freezer to harden into butter crunch (can take 1/2 hour to 1 hour, depending on your freezer).
- Cream together the remaining 1 1/2 cups of butter with the remaining 1 1/2 cups of white sugar, the brown sugar and the confectioner’s sugar. Mix in the eggs, vanilla and corn syrup.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the mixture gradually to the creamed butter mix.
- Chop the hardened butter crunch into small pieces and fold into the dough.
- Line cookie sheets with parchment paper and spray the paper with cooking spray. Roll the dough into small balls, using about a tablespoon of dough for each cookie. Place them on the cookie sheets about one inch apart.
- Bake about 9 minutes. Cookies will be light brown on the edges but pale. Let cool a few minutes and then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.
