Whenever I visit a heartland bakery store, it always bring me delight to find a bottle of Old School Butter Cookies. These come in various shapes and forms as designed by the bakers. However, a design that stuck well with me through my childhood years is one with a sun-like shape with a strawberry jam centre. Each of these Old School Butter Cookies is nicely buttery and fragrant, complementing well with the lightly sweet and tart strawberry centre!

The making of these Old School Butter Cookies is absolutely simple, and the best part? They require really straightforward ingredients (about 5), and you won’t even require an egg. As such, if you’re someone who’s vegetarian or allergic to eggs, this recipe is perfect for you!

In order to make successful Old School Butter Cookies, here is what you would need:

  1. Good Quality Butter
    Get authetentic and legitimate butter. By this, I mean butter with at least 80% – 82% fat content with minimal additives and perservatives. Most brands in supermarkets should carry such butter, and I will avoid margarine for this recipe (vegetable fat content).It makes a huge difference and goes a long way for this recipe!
  2. Vanilla!
    A dash goes a long way, and it is especially noticeable for these Old School Butter Cookies with minimal ingredients. Try not to skimp on the vanilla, and make sure to add this in!
  3. Strawberry Jam
    As much as possible and though less than ideal for standards these days, try to use smooth strawberry jams with minimal fibres. This would make piping of the strawberry jam centres much easier. Furthermore, strawberry perservatives (which contains fibres as less processing is involved) may make the centre of each cookie look slightly clumpier.While I do agree that jams with fibres retained have better nutritional content, one without these fibres is exactly what most old school bakeries used, and really help to complete the aesthetic.

That’s really about all you have to know! A final point to note too is to let your inner child run wild with the piping – pick your favourite piping tip, or even tips, and decorate away!

Without further ado, the recipe.

Old School Butter Cookies
by Javier Tan March-02-2025

Nostalgia is just an hour and 5 ingredients from being resolved through these easy and delightful Old School Butter Cookies!

Ingredients

  • 1/2 Cup or 115g of Butter, Softened at Room Temp
  • 1/3 Cup + 1 Tspn or 45g of Icing Sugar
  • 1 Tsp or 5ml of Vanilla Essence
  • 1/2 Cup + 2 Tbspns or 140g of Plain Flour
  • Approx 100g of Jam of choice (smooth if possible)

Instructions

  1. Firstly, cream together the butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy, approx 2 minutes.
  2. Then, whisk in the vanilla.
  3. Fold in the flour until a dough is formed. Refrigerate for 5 – 10 minutes to harden, in the meanwhile, pre-heat oven to 160C.
  4. Next, transfer the dough to a piping bag with a desired tip and pipe on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
  5. Using your finger, make small holes at the centre of each cookie and pipe the jam in.
  6. Bake at 160C for 13 – 15 minutes till nicely golden brown.
  7. Serve and enjoy!

Details

  • Prep time: 1 hour
  • Cook time: 20 mins
  • Total time: 1 hours 20 mins
  • Yield: Makes approx. 24 – 32 Easy Old School Butter Cookies (depends on size)

Notes:

  1. If you would like to be updated for more recipes which I strive to create to perfection for sharing and for free, do check out my Instagram, Facebook Page, or YouTube 🙂 Thank you so much for all of your support! Feel free to tag me or link back here!
  2. Stores well at room temperature for up to 3 weeks, best consumed within the first couple of weeks.
  3. Please do not copy and paste the recipe without my permission, but feel free to link back here!

Enjoy!
– Bakeomaniac, Javier Tan