Hungarian Butterhorn Cookies Recipe

Name: Hungarian Butterhorn Cookies
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 145 min
Yield: 32 cookies
Ingredients: For the filling:; 2 egg whites; 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (optional); 2/3 cup (135 grams) superfine granulated sugar; 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract; 3 tablespoons (21 grams) very finely chopped/ground walnuts (use a mini chopper) or walnut flour; For the dough:; 1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter, softened; 1 teaspoon instant yeast; 1/3 cup (80 grams) sour cream; 2 egg yolks; 2 2/3 cups (333 grams) all-purpose flour; 1 teaspoon kosher salt; 1 cup powdered sugar for dusting the work surface and rolling out the dough; For the glaze:; 5 cups (500 grams) powdered sugar; 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract; 6 to 8 tablespoons milk

What Is a Butterhorn Cookie?

Butterhorns are crescent-shaped cookies made from an enriched, yeasted dough, with a small amount of walnut-meringue filling rolled up inside and a powdered sugar glaze on top. They are very sweet and perfect with a strong cup of coffee.

There are three components to these cookies:

yeasted cookie dough
meringue filling
powdered sugar glaze.

Butterhorn Christmas Cookies in a white bowl with one split in half revealing the filling. — Coco Morante

How To Make Yeasted Cookie Dough

The yeasted dough is actually easier to make than it sounds.

The original recipe contained fresh yeast, a.k.a. baker’s yeast or cake yeast, which can be difficult to track down. I’ve made these cookies many times using instant yeast instead, which is much more widely available (the SAF brand is my favorite).

Colleen says that the fresh yeast makes a difference, but I think both kinds work equally well! Either way, there’s no need to bloom the yeast—it gets beaten right into the dough along with the butter, sour cream, and egg yolks.

How To Make Walnut Meringue Filling

The filling is a French-style meringue of egg whites and granulated sugar whipped until it is satiny and smooth. You’ll know it’s ready when you can rub some of the meringue between your fingers and not feel any gritty grains of sugar.

I like to use superfine granulated sugar, as it incorporates into the egg whites more quickly than granulated sugar. If granulated sugar is what you have on hand, you can either use it as it is or pulse it in a food processor five to eight times to make superfine sugar.

A few spoonfuls of ground walnuts are mixed in once the meringue is fully whipped. If you don’t care for walnuts, swap it with something else. You can use ground:

Pecans
Almonds or even almond meal
Pistachios
Hazelnuts

Don’t skip the filling! It helps hold the cookie together, adds sweetness, and turns puffy and crackly as it bakes, making for a textural contrast that’s hidden inside the flaky dough.

Hungarian Nut Horns set on a cooling rack inside a baking sheet. — Coco Morante

What To Do With Leftover Meringue

You will have about 1/2 cup of the meringue filling leftover. Fold it into a pancake or muffin batter for added sweetness and lift or make meringue cookies. Just drop tablespoonfuls of the filling onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for one hour at 200°F, then turn off the oven and leave them in there for another hour to fully dry.

How To Shape the Cookies

You’ll roll the dough out into circles, then cut it into wedges, spread each one with a bit of the filling, and roll them up like crescent rolls. (You can tuck the corners in to make the cookies u-shaped if you like, but Colleen leaves them straight.)

The dough doesn’t have to be rolled into a perfect circle, and the wedges don’t have to be perfectly even either. Just do your best. The cookies always come out slightly varied in size, which is part of their charm.

The dough is pliable but sticky; follow the tips below to get the best results:

Buy a big bag of sugar: Use lots and lots of powdered sugar on your work surface as you roll it out. The sugar will keep the dough from sticking, and some will absorb into the cookies giving them an extra touch of sweetness.
A wooden cutting board is best: A large wooden cutting board is the most non-stick surface for rolling out this dough.
Use the proper tool: To cut the circle of dough into wedges, use either a bench scraper, a chef’s knife, or a pizza cutter.

Once they’re baked, you’ll spread a generous amount of the powdered sugar glaze on top of each cookie, so they’re fully coated in a sweet, smooth topping.

How To Store Butterhorn Cookies

These cookies are best enjoyed in the first couple of days (and they never last beyond Christmas Day in the Morante house, anyway). They will keep in a tightly lidded container for up to 3 days at room temperature.

To freeze: If you must make them more than a day or two ahead, wait until the glaze is completely set, then freeze them in a tightly lidded container for up to 3 months.

To thaw: Place them in a single layer on a platter and leave them out for an hour or two.

More Christmas Cookie Recipes

Hungarian Butterhorn Cookies

Prep Time 45 mins

Cook Time 10 mins

Cooling 90 mins

Total Time 2 hrs 25 mins

Roll these cookies out on a powdered sugar-dusted work surface. I recommend buying a 2-pound bag of powdered sugar to make this batch of cookies—you won’t use all of it, but you will be sure not to run out, either!

For the filling:

2 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (optional)
2/3 cup (135 grams) superfine granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons (21 grams) very finely chopped/ground walnuts (use a mini chopper), or walnut flour

For the dough:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1/3 cup 80 grams sour cream
2 egg yolks
2 2/3 cups (333 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup powdered sugar for dusting the work surface and rolling out the dough

For the glaze:

5 cups (500 grams) powdered sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 to 8 tablespoons milk

Preheat the oven and prepare the baking sheets:

Preheat the oven to 400°F and line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
Make the filling:

In a very clean, large mixing bowl, use a whisk, hand mixer, or stand mixer with whisk attachment to whisk together the egg whites and cream of tartar, just until the cream of tartar is fully incorporated and the egg whites have a lot of bubbles.

Add the sugar to the egg whites, one tablespoon at a time, whisking it in completely after each addition, for a minute or so if you’re doing it by hand, or about 30 seconds if you’re using an electric mixer.

Add the vanilla, then continue to whisk at high speed, until the egg whites are glossy and silky in texture. Stop the mixer and rub a little of the meringue between your fingers. It should feel smooth and you should not be able to feel any gritty sugar between your fingers.

Coco Morante

Coco Morante
Add the walnuts:

Whisk the ground walnuts into the meringue just until well combined, about 30 seconds. Set aside. (If you are using a stand mixer, use a spatula to transfer the meringue to a small bowl, then wash out the mixer bowl and return it to the stand.)

Coco Morante
Mix the dough:

In a large mixing bowl, use a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment to cream the butter, yeast, sour cream, and egg yolks for about 2 minutes—it’s fine if the mixture looks split or a bit broken.

Add the flour and salt in three batches, mixing slowly until the flour is thoroughly blended into the dough, about 10 seconds each time.

Coco Morante

Coco Morante

Coco Morante
Prepare your work surface and divide the dough:

Sprinkle a work surface generously with powdered sugar. Transfer the dough to the work surface. If the dough is still a little shaggy, knead in the dryer bits until you have a cohesive ball of dough. Use a bench scraper or knife to divide the dough into four equal pieces. Shape each of the pieces of dough into a round disk, about 1 inch thick

Coco Morante

Coco Morante
Roll and cut the dough into wedges:

Using a rolling pin, roll one piece of the dough into a circle about 10 inches in diameter and about 1/8-inch thick, a little bit thinner than if you were rolling out pie dough. With a bench scraper, knife, or pizza cutter, cut the dough into 8 triangle wedges.

Coco Morante
Fill the cookies:

Spoon a small amount of the meringue mixture onto the wide end of a wedge of dough, about a heaped 1/2 teaspoon of filling. You may use a little more or less depending on the wedge of dough, as they won’t likely be all perfectly evenly sized.

Coco Morante
Shape the cookies:

Roll up the dough from the wide end to the tip, like you would a crescent roll. (The filling may spread along the wedge of dough a bit as you’re rolling it up, but it shouldn’t spill out too much over the sides. Use a light hand and don’t worry if they’re a little messy.)

You can gently bend the ends in to form a crescent shape or just leave them straight. It’s up to you.

Transfer the cookie to the lined baking sheet.

Complete this process with the rest of the dough, rolling out the three remaining balls of dough, cutting them into wedges, and rolling up the cookies with the filling, to make 32 cookies.

You will have a good amount of filling leftover (a half cup or so).

Coco Morante

Coco Morante
Bake:

Bake the cookies for 10 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking to ensure that they bake evenly. They should be light in color when they are done, and just barely lightly browned on the ends. You can check for doneness by touching one of the cookies, if it springs back when gently poked, the cookies are done.

Coco Morante
Cool:

Remove the cookies from the oven and transfer them to wire cooling racks. Let the cookies cool completely, for about 30 to 45 minutes. Save the baking sheets. You’ll use them again to glaze the cookies.
Make the glaze:

In a bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, vanilla, and 6 tablespoons of the milk. Once you have incorporated as much of the powdered sugar as will absorb into the milk, add more milk gradually, by the teaspoon, until the glaze is thick but pourable, a little bit thicker than Elmer’s glue.

Coco Morante

Coco Morante
Glaze the cookies:

Place the cooling racks on lined baking sheets to catch any dripping glaze.

Spoon about a tablespoon of glaze over the top of each cookie, using a spoon to gently coax the glaze into dripping down the sides— you want to cover the cookies as much as possible. Let the glaze set for an hour or so, until it is no longer tacky.

Coco Morante

Coco Morante
Enjoy!

The cookies will keep in a tightly lidded container for up to three days at room temperature or up to three months in the freezer.

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
6594	Calories
232g	Fat
1,079g	Carbs
69g	Protein

Nutrition Facts
Amount per serving
Calories	6594
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 232g	298%
Saturated Fat 131g	654%
Cholesterol 1101mg	367%
Sodium 1649mg	72%
Total Carbohydrate 1079g	392%
Dietary Fiber 11g	41%
Total Sugars 808g
Protein 69g
Vitamin C 1mg	6%
Calcium 444mg	34%
Iron 19mg	105%
Potassium 1094mg	23%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate. In cases where multiple ingredient alternatives are given, the first listed is calculated for nutrition. Garnishes and optional ingredients are not included.