Danish Wedding Cookies Recipe

5 from 2 votes

These Danish Wedding Cookies with their melt-in-your-mouth tender texture, filled with toasted pecans and eye-catching icing sugar are perfect for the Festive season.

Prep Time15

Cook Time10

Total Time25

Course: Cookies

Cuisine: European

Servings: cookies

Calories: 117kcal

Author: Emma Duckworth

Ingredients

220 g unsalted butter room temperature
80 g powdered icing sugar (confectioners’ sugar)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
270 g plain flour (all-purpose)
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
90 g pecan halves
120 g powdered icing sugar (confectioners’ sugar) for rolling cookies in

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Prep. Turn the oven to 180°C (350°F). Line two baking trays with parchment paper.
Process the pecans. Add the pecans into a food processor and process until they are ground but have little pieces for textural contrast. Don't take it too far other wise you'll end up with nut butter!
Cream butter, icing sugar and extract until smooth. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the ingredients until pale and thickened. About two minutes. You can use hand-held beaters too.
Add in the dry ingredients. Scrape the base and sides of the bowl and add in the ground pecans, flour and salt and mix on low speed until a dough forms. You'll find it quite a thick crumbly dough on the outset.
Roll dough into balls and bake. Roll 1 tablespoon worth of dough into balls in the palms of your hands. The dough may feel quite dry but the heat of your palms will soften the butter in the balls and help them smooth out.
Place balls 5cm (2-inch) apart on the prepared baking trays and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Keep an eye on them. You don't want them to brown on the top as the bottom may end up burning.
Double toss cookies in icing sugar. Once baked, remove the baking tray from the oven and set aside for ten minutes.
When they are still warm and not too hot to handle, then toss each cookie in the icing sugar. Place back on the wire rack to cool completely. The icing sugar will melt into the warm cookie.
Then toss in the icing sugar again. The sugar melts into the warm cookie in the first toss, so it's worth repeating for the snow ball look.
Serve immediately.

Notes

Step-by-Step Photos: My blog post includes helpful step-by-step photos to help guide you through making this recipe.

To Store: Once baked, cooled and dusted in icing sugar, store cookies in an air tight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.

To Freeze: I recommend freezing the baked cookies before rolling in icing sugar. Place in a freezer-safe container and freeze for up to 2 months. Thaw at room temperature and then roll in icing sugar before serving.

Toasting Pecans: Lay pecans on a baking tray and roast in a preheated 180°C (350°F) oven for 10 minutes or so, or until fragrant. Don't burn them though and let them cool in the food processor before carrying on to the next step.

TIP 1: Make sure the nuts are fresh. If they smell rancid and are soft then buy yourself a fresh packet.

TIP 2: Toasting the nuts goes a long way by adding immeasurable depth of flavour.

TIP 3: Chop or process the nuts finely. The texture of the cookies once baked are delicate and big chunky nuts doesn't sit as well within.

TIP 4: Keep an eye on your baking time. These are only small cookies with a short bake time and an extra minute or two can turn these from having their melting, tender quality to being dry and crumbly.

TIP 5: Aluminium vs dark baking sheets. Black baking sheets absorb the heat and can burn the base of the cookies. Use aluminium or lighter grey cookie sheets if you can.

Nutrition