Home » Heidesand – German Shortbread with Browned Butter
By Barbara / 8 Comments / December 1, 2019
Heidesand is a kind of German shortbread, made with browned butter and that is what gives it its unique and wonderful taste!
Usually, I prefer cookies with royal icing or with chocolate or anything else interesting. Bare cookies are not so much my thing with this exception: Heidesand cookies! They have a distinguished taste that beats every other cookie. The browned butter in this recipe adds so much interest and flavor, I believe it is very special and just tastes as Fall feels.
I believe these cookies are mostly a recipe from the north of Germany. Especially in an area called “Friesland” we enjoy a good cup of tea with these cookies in the afternoon. Some rock candy in the tea and a bit of rum (to fight the cold weather, of cause) and everyone is happy.
Friesland is the area at the coast in the north-west of Germany where the harsh weather of the Northern Sea brings a lot of winds and rain or even storms. I love that area for its wild landscape and the people who barely speak a word but are fun once they open their mouth to say something. I believe there is some British influence to that. They also speak in a different dialect which has a lot in common with English and Dutch.
How to bake it
In the video, I show you every step of the way and I want to make sure you are sticking to the thickness of the cookies. They really should be that thick, like a little over 1/4 inch or 1 cm. If you make them too thin, they will not taste as supposed.
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Heidesand
Barbara
4.92 from 12 votes
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Prep Time 30 minutes mins
Cook Time 15 minutes mins
1 hour hr
Total Time 1 hour hr 45 minutes mins
Ingredients
- 250 g Butter
- 200 g Sugar
- 2-3 tsp. Vanilla Sugar or some vanilla extract
- 1 pinch Salt
- 2-3 Tbsp. Milk
- 375 g Flour (all purpose)
- 1 tsp. Baking Powder
Instructions
In a saucepan, melt the butter and let it cook on medium temperature until it browned. Don't mind some black dot's in it.
Remove the butter from the heat and let it cool: First at room temperature, then in the fridge until it is solid/creamy again.
Put the cooled butter into a bowl and mix it until it is creamy and fluffy. Takes about ½ minute.
Mix the flour with the baking powder.
Slowly add the sugar, vanilla sugar, salt, milk and flour while mixing
Mix it well but not too long.
Take the dough out of the bowl and continue kneading with your hands.
Shape two long strings from the dough, each with a diameter of about 2 inches or 5 cm.
Let these strings rest in the refrigerator until they have hardened (30+ minutes).
Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F.
Now line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone sheet.
Cut the dough strings into slices or ¼ inch or 1 cm and place each slice onto the baking sheet.
Bake in the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes – more or less time needed, depending on the size and thickness of your cookies.
Remove the cookies from the oven when they are almost but not yet completely done.
Let the cookies cook a little on the baking sheet before you remove them.
Eat them right away or store them airtight.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
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8 thoughts on “Heidesand – German Shortbread with Browned Butter”
Birgit Stiglitz
December 1, 2021 at 1:39 pm
Perfect recipe. Lost mine, but it all came back. Love that it makes a batch for plenty of grandkids.Holly
January 17, 2021 at 2:17 pm
These sound so good. Just so you know the term you are looking for is to roll them into logs, not sticks. I understand that English isn’t your first language ?. You have done remarkably well in your videos! Tschüß!Barbara
January 18, 2021 at 9:56 am
Yes, thank you! This is the word I was looking for. Now I know :-)
Ashleigh Hensch
May 6, 2020 at 7:17 pm
They turned out wonderful! I live in the U.S., but used a scale to get the grams correct and everything turned out perfect (I’m even using gluten-free bread flour). Also, I noticed the recipe/blog/article mentions a video, but I don’t see one on the page…Barbara
May 7, 2020 at 10:50 am
Ooops, it seems that I forgot to put the video into the post. I just fixed it. You can also subscribe to my youtube channel for my other videos.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBCQ3cjqSTiUuG_hmohsblQ/videos
Susan Lynch
February 8, 2020 at 1:52 pm
Hello Barbara, can you use margarine instead of butter in your cookie recipes? Also tomorrow I am going to make your cucumber stew. Thanks, Susan
Barbara
February 8, 2020 at 2:00 pm
Hi Susan,
Yes, you can use margarine instead of butter.
I hope you like the cucumber stew, it is really one of my favorite dishes.Barbara
Gareth
December 2, 2019 at 5:54 am
These sound really nice, as shortbread is one of my favourite biscuits normally, I will be very interested to taste this variation :D
Cheers from Australia.
Gareth
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