Danish Vaniljekranse (Vanilla Wreaths)
The Danish Christmas cookie behind the famous blue tin: a rich butter dough with ground almonds and a whole vanilla bean, piped through a star tip into little rings and baked crisp and golden.
Den Store Danske, the Danish national encyclopedia, says the vanilla wreath is a small Danish cookie with a hole in the middle, eaten much of the year but tied to Christmas baking; the earliest recipe it cites is L. Eibe's in 1849, made with finely ground sweet almonds, vanilla, sugar, egg whites and a little flour. A. C. Dragsted (1859) suggested pressing the dough through a syringe into rings, and late-1800s meat grinders came with star-shaped plates, which gave the cookies their ridged look; tied with red ribbon, they became Christmas tree decorations. Today, the encyclopedia says, the cookie is mostly factory-made as part of the "Danish butter cookies" brand, sold in colorful tins, especially in the United States and parts of East Asia. Royal Dansk says its cookies first came out of the oven in Helsingør in 1966, packed in a blue tin showing an old Danish farmhouse.
📖 Where is it from?: Mexican Wedding Cookies vs Russian Tea Cakes vs Snowballs → 📖 Origin story: What Is Lebkuchen? Nuremberg's Christmas Spice Cake, Explained →
Why it works the kitchen science
Potato starch
Replacing a quarter of the flour with starch cuts the gluten, so the rings stay short and crisp and the ridges hold their shape.
Ground whole vanilla bean
Grinding the pod with the almonds puts real vanilla flavor and specks through every ring.
Step by step
- Step 1
Grind the whole vanilla bean in a food processor or mini chopper, add the almonds and grind together into a fine vanilla almond meal.
- Step 2
Mix the flour and potato starch in a large bowl. Add the butter, sugar and almond meal and beat just until the dough holds together.
- Step 3
Add the eggs and beat briefly into a smooth dough.
- Step 4
Heat the oven to 390°F (200°C) conventional. Line baking sheets with parchment.
- Step 5
Fill a piping bag fitted with a large star tip (use a fabric bag, or two plastic bags one inside the other) and pipe rings about 2 inches across. If the dough is too stiff to pipe rings, pipe 4-inch strips and join the ends into rings.
- Step 6
Bake on the top rack 12 to 14 minutes, until lightly golden at the edges.
- Step 7
Cool on a rack and store in an airtight tin.
Danish Vaniljekranse (Vanilla Wreaths)
Serves 25 (2 cookies each) · about 50 rings, 2 inches across · 1 hr 10 min total
Vanilla almond meal
- 1 vanilla bean, cut into small pieces (or 3 tsp vanilla sugar or 1 tsp vanilla powder)
- 2/3 cup (100 g) blanched almonds
Dough
- 3 cups plus 2 tbsp (375 g) all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp (125 g) potato starch
- 1 2/3 cups (3 1/3 sticks, 375 g) butter, softened
- 1 1/4 cups (250 g) sugar
- 2 large eggs
Method
- Grind the whole vanilla bean in a food processor or mini chopper, add the almonds and grind together into a fine vanilla almond meal.
- Mix the flour and potato starch in a large bowl. Add the butter, sugar and almond meal and beat just until the dough holds together.
- Add the eggs and beat briefly into a smooth dough.
- Heat the oven to 390°F (200°C) conventional. Line baking sheets with parchment.
- Fill a piping bag fitted with a large star tip (use a fabric bag, or two plastic bags one inside the other) and pipe rings about 2 inches across. If the dough is too stiff to pipe rings, pipe 4-inch strips and join the ends into rings.
- Bake on the top rack 12 to 14 minutes, until lightly golden at the edges.
- Cool on a rack and store in an airtight tin.
Adapted from Arla Denmark, "Vaniljekranse," developed in Arla's test kitchen, as written for about 50, converted to US amounts. Arla's 200°C conventional oven is converted to 390°F. Arla. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (3)
Tips
- Arla's tip: with a meat grinder's cookie plate (small star), run chilled dough through, cut 4-inch lengths and form rings; it makes about twice as many, about 100.
- Arla says the dough keeps a few days in the fridge or can be frozen; bring it back toward room temperature before piping.
- Soft vaniljekranse are underbaked or stored wrong; Arla says they keep crisp 3 to 4 weeks in an airtight tin.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Vaniljekranse date from the 1840s. Disputed detail: Den Store Danske's earliest cited recipe is Eibe, 1849; other Danish sources say "around the 1840s" or name Madam Mangor in 1842 (search summaries only).
- The blue tin cookies are the real thing. Disputed: Den Store Danske says the cookie is now mostly factory-made and sold as "Danish butter cookies"; Danish home bakers treat homemade vaniljekranse as a separate tradition.
- Every blue tin ends up holding sewing supplies. Folklore: a widely shared joke; the explanations offered (wartime reuse, tins being rare) are speculation.
- The star shape came from meat grinders. Documented as Den Store Danske's account.
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