Tie Dye Butter Cookies
Move over, tie-dyed loungewear – there’s a new pyschedlic star in town.
Okay, raise your hand if you have fallen back in love with tie dye lately. Because, same.
Once resigned to Grateful Dead concerts and Girl Scout camping trips (in undoubtedly mutually exclusive audiences), the trend has seen a serious re-emergence among influencers on social media.
And who doesn’t love the beautiful irony of a subpopulation dedicated to living off the Earth embracing a color spectrum so eye-meltingly bright it couldn’t possibly occur in nature? Lucky for us, nature’s rainbow is now available through some amazingly saturated plant-based food-coloring powders.
Surely, tie dye’s return signals happier times. And what’s not to be happy about? Brought to us by the infallible genius of Bon Appetit, these might be *the* best butter cookies I’ve ever tried. Simple, buttery and with a sweetness so gentle, it wouldn’t be out of place at breakfast. What more could you ask for? Why, a delicate layer of glaze, of course.
The cookie’s swirled design is deceptively simple. Mix up small batches of glaze icing in your choice of colors; as you can see, I chose pink, blue and yellow. Add one spoonful of each color to a small plate. For a pastel effect or to create space between the colors as I did, include a spoonful of uncolored icing as well. Using a toothpick, gently swirl, but do not over-mix.
Holding the edges, dip your baked cookie into the swirl and gently lift. Don’t worry about letting the glaze drip – the beauty is in the mess! How groovy is that?
Peace, love and butter cookies, baby.
PrintTie Dye Butter Cookies
Peace, love and butter cookies, baby. These tie dyed treats are the perfect blend of buttery and sweet. Best of all? This beautiful marbling is so easy to pull off!
- Prep Time: 30 min
- Cook Time: 15 min
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 24 cookies 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
Ingredients
for the butter cookies
- 14 Tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 1¼ tsp. kosher salt
- 2 large egg yolks
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- 2 cups (256 g) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
for the royal icing (makes two colors)
- 2 cups (240 g) powdered sugar, divided
- 6 Tbsp. (or more) whole milk, divided
- Food coloring, as needed
- ¼ tsp. kosher salt, divided
Special Equipment
- Circlular cookie cutters
Instructions
Cookies
- Using an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and salt in a large bowl, scraping down sides and bottom of bowl as needed, until light and creamy, about 3 minutes.
- Add egg yolks and vanilla and beat until incorporated, about 1 minute.
- Reduce speed to low, add 2 cups flour, and mix until incorporated. Dough will be semifirm but can be rolled out without chilling. If your kitchen is very warm and/or dough is sticky, pat it into a 1″-thick disk, wrap in plastic, and chill 15 minutes to let firm up before rolling out.
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- Roll out dough on a lightly floured sheet of parchment paper, dusting with more flour as needed to keep dough from sticking, to about ¼” thick.
- Punch out shapes as desired with lightly floured cookie cutters and transfer to 2 parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing 1½” apart.
- Pat scraps into a 1″-thick disk, wrap with plastic, and chill 10 minutes if soft. Repeat process.
- Bake cookies 10-15 minutes, rotating halfway through, until edges are golden brown.
- Let cookies cool 10 minutes on baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.
Glaze
- Whisk 1 cup powdered sugar, 3 Tbsp. milk, food coloring (start off with just a few drops and add more as needed), and half of salt in a small bowl until no lumps remain. Glaze should be the consistency of heavy cream; add more milk if needed.
- For a deeper color, whisk in more food coloring 1 drop at a time until desired color is achieved; adjust with milk if needed. Repeat with second food-coloring, remaining salt, remaining 1 cup powdered sugar, and remaining 3 Tbsp. milk, adjusting intensity of color as desired.
- Spoon 1 tsp. first glaze in the center of a small plate. Drizzle 1 tsp. second glaze over the first and use a toothpick to slightly swirl colors together; don’t go overboard. (If you want to decorate larger cookies, add 1 tsp. glaze to plate for each additional inch.)
- Gently press the top of a cookie into glaze, then lift up and allow excess glaze to drip back onto the plate.
- Using a toothpick, pop any air bubbles and swirl colors more if desired.
- Transfer to a wire rack set inside a rimmed baking sheet.
- Repeat with 2 more cookies, adding ½ tsp. of each color of glaze to plate before each cookie is dipped.
- The glaze will lose its swirly effect at this point. Clean plate and repeat process, decorating cookies in batches of 3 until all cookies have been glazed.
- Let sit until glaze is set, at least 2 hours.
Notes
Dough can be made 1 month ahead; wrap tightly and freeze.
Cookies can be baked 2 days ahead; store airtight at room temperature.
Cookies can be glazed 1 day ahead. Store tightly wrapped on a rimmed baking sheet at room temperature.
Keywords: Butter cookies, tie dye cookies, marbled cookies
