Baking Adventure #1 - A study in butter and patience

So today to celebrate the end of stress-day and the commencement of this blog, I attempted to make Danish butter cookies. You know the kind in the blue tin you probably ate at some point? Yeah, those.

I found the recipe here on the blog "Travelling Foodies". They made it seem very easy. I soon learned that Danish butter cookies are one of the challenges of life mentioned in the title of this blog.

(please excuse my lack of photography skills - I'll get better, I promise)

First you start with an unholy amount of butter. 

You mix this room temperature butter in with flour, icing sugar, an egg, and 'vanilla bean paste'. I am ashamed to say that I have never heard of vanilla bean paste in my life, so instead I used 1/2 a tsp. of ground vanilla beans.

Eventually you'll end up with a rather stiff cookie dough. This is where the challenge comes in. I could not for the life of me find my piping bags, so I attempted to use a thick ziplock bag with the corner cut off instead. For the love of God, do not do this. I wasted five bags and a lot of my sanity while trying to make this work. Eventually I got fed up and searched my kitchen to eventually find my piping bags hidden in a cupboard. Lesson learned.

if at first you don't succeed

just go and find the piping bag ok - it's so much easier

They were as delicious and caloric as you would expect for a recipe with the word butter in the name. Happy Thursday, internet.