Rosemary Butter Cookies

Hi friends! I’m super excited to share this recipe with you. My husband and I are celebrating our fourth wedding anniversary, tomorrow, and these little cookies are the exact cookies we gifted to all our wedding guests. Everyone got a little box to take home and let me tell you, people are still talking about these Rosemary Butter Cookies. That is the mark of a good recipe. Four years later and folks are still requesting these. I think it’s fair to say, they’re unforgettable!

The first time we came across these cookies, was in a little ice cream shop in Decatur, Georgia called Butter and Cream. If you’re in the area, it’s a must. I try and bring all our visitors here. It’s become our favourite dessert spot and my husband willing goes out of his way to bring home a pint of either Bourbon toffee or honeycomb forest (our go-to flavours), especially if it’s been one of those days.

The first time we came across these cookies, we’d been out at the park and decided we’d stop and get some ice cream. My husband isn’t the most adventurous when it comes to flavours, he had been ordering their coffee ice cream in milkshake form. Now, I on the other hand, am a little more adventurous and went with honeycomb forest and the bourbon toffee. They’re sooo good. My mouth is watering just thinking about it, I’ve tried a bunch of their other flavours, but these are the two I always go back to.

So on this particular day, after getting our ice cream, I ran into the grocery store to buy a few items. I left my husband in the car with my ice cream. A few minutes later, I came back to find my ice cream gone, and the bowl licked clean. I’m pretty sure my jaw hit the ground. You see, neither of us are good at sharing our food. We’re just not those people. I’ll share with my children, I’ve learned to share with my husband, but I’m not very good at it. You can actually read more about my contempt for sharing food here. Not my best trait, but hey, at least I can be honest about it.

So needless to say, I was annoyed with my husband. I still can’t believe he ate it all. I must have given him the dirtiest of dirty looks, because he shrugged and said “I just wanted to try it and then I couldn’t stop”. Friends, the ice cream really is that good. Then he proceeds to get mad at me. Asks why I’ve been keeping this ice cream a secret from him. Now, by this time, Butter and Cream had closed, but he agreed to take me back the next day for another bowl to make up for eating all of mine.

So, when we got there, I ran in to grab the ice cream, guess who decided, he’d have the same flavours as me. Anyways, they happen to have, on their counter, these little Rosemary cookies. They made me curious. So, I grabbed a bag for us and a bag for my mom, I figured she’d enjoy them as well. And since this was a redemption trip, for previous ice cream crimes, I also bought a slice of strawberry cake. Everything was delicious, but these rosemary cookies stood out. They are lightly sweet, with a little savoury kick.

Anyways, these quickly became our cookies and we pick them up, anytime we get ice cream, or maybe more accurately, we pick up ice cream when we get these cookies.

When we started planning for our wedding celebration, I wanted something from Georgia to share with our friends and family. We tossed around the idea of peaches and pecans and how we could work those two in. My aunt, who is incredible and takes on any and every task, baked both types of pies, for us to serve at the celebration. So that covered Georgia. You can read about a few of our other favourite details from our wedding here.

Then it hit us, Rosemary Butter Cookies, would be the perfect fit. I found this recipe on the Martha Stewart website. It’s as close to Butter and Cream’s version as I’ve been able to find. We switched rolling the dough in sugar to sea salt, it ups the savoury factor and is the way Butter and Cream does it. My aunt and I made over 600 cookies for our wedding favours. She’s the best!

Martha’s version, rolls these into logs and then freezes them, but I can never get them perfectly round. This is how we did them for the wedding, however, the last time I made these I put them in a long, skinny bread pan I bought at Ikea. I also found the pan here (affiliate link). Or you could freeform the dough by hand and go that route, it would work too.

How to make Rosemary Butter Cookies

Mix together the butter, sugar, add in the egg and vanilla. Then sift in the flour, and add in the salt and rosemary and mix until the dough comes together. Now decide if you want rectangular or circular cookies. In my experience the rectangular ones are much easier and will be the route I use in the future. However, with the circular version you’ll end up with more cookies. If you’re wanting circular cookies, divide the dough in half. Then, roll each on parchment paper into a log about 1.5″ in diameter and then freeze. If you’re going the easier rectangular route, line a skinny bread pan about 3″ wide with parchment paper. Then flatten the dough into the pan, cover with more parchment and freeze.

Freeze the cookies for about an hour. Regardless of which version you chose, brush the dough with egg whites and then roll or sprinkle with sea salt. With a good knife, slice each into 1/4″ thick rounds. Lay them on a cookie sheet and bake.

Now a quick word of warning, these will disappear. Literally, it happened in my home and my mother-in-laws. These Rosemary Butter Cookies become breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had a large container about 3/4 full, (about 80 cookies or so) after baking these the first time. I had gone out to run a few errands. Upon my return, I found 10 cookies at the bottom of the container. And again, I just looked at my husband who apparently can’t control himself around amazing flavours and really good food. I just laughed, lesson learned. Now, I put a few aside, as back up, just in case.

If you love this Rosemary Butter Cookie, check out these other delicious recipes, I’m sure they’ll hit the spot:

• Mrs. McBane’s Sugar Cookies
• Grandma’s Soft Gingersnaps
• Melt In Your Mouth Chocolate Chip Cookies

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If you get a chance to make this or any other recipe on the blog and want to share. Please feel free to tag @candyjarchronicles or use #candyjarchronicles on Instagram, so I can see your post. I’d love to see what you’re cooking in your kitchen!

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