Easy Swedish Butter Cookies (Kolasnittar)

Last week I wanted to bake something sweet for a TV night with my friends and I didn’t have time to go to the grocery store, so I opted for a simple and oh so delicious favorite: kolasnittar, or Swedish butter cookies. They’re like the vanilla sugar version of another beloved recipe that I shared a couple years ago, chokladsnittar.

Swedish butter cookies are quick and easy to make, especially as you don’t even need to shape the dough into individual cookies. Instead, you simply roll the dough into long logs and slice it into cookies after it’s finished baking.

These kolasnittar are crispy along the edges but still soft in the middle, and they have a lovely hint of maple.

Tips

Traditionally kolasnittar (also called sirapskakor) are made with light syrup, which is commonly used in baking here in Scandinavia. Light syrup is similar to British golden syrup (like Lyle’s Golden Syrup), or light treacle. However since light treacle isn’t commonly used in the US, I experimented a bit with my Swedish butter cookie recipe and found that an equal mixture of honey and maple syrup tastes even better in these than light syrup.

You do need to use both maple syrup and honey. I’ve tried with only maple syrup and the texture wasn’t right – these need the stickiness of the honey as well.

I prefer to use a scale to weigh out the flour, but if you’re using measuring cups be sure to pour the flour into the cups instead of using the cups to scoop the flour, which packs the flour down too much. If you do accidentally add too much flour, you can add a bit of neutral oil to the cookie dough to help bring it together. You should be able to pack the dough together into a ball.

Divide the ball of dough into four pieces and roll them out into logs a little shorter than the length of your baking sheet.

If the logs fall apart as you are rolling them you can pinch the dough together or knead it a bit more. You can also add a bit of oil or softened butter if necessary.

I like to sprinkle the cookie dough with coarse sugar, but this is optional. You might need to press the sugar into the dough if it all rolls off.

Bake the cookies two logs (one baking sheet) at a time. The dough will flatten considerably as they bake, so you need plenty of space between the logs. Bake them for about 18 minutes, until the edges are just starting to become golden (check on them a few minutes early to make sure you don’t over bake them).

Let the logs cool for two minutes and then slice them diagonally into cookies. You can use a pastry or pizza wheel or a dough cutter (or knife) to slice the cookies. Be sure only to wait a couple of minutes before slicing them, as they might break if you try to slice them when they are fully cooled.

You can switch the recipe from US measurements to metric by clicking from “US Customary” to “Metric” under Ingredients.