Buttery Vanilla Sandwich Cookies — These vanilla sugar cookies with frosting in the middle are buttery, delicate, and literally melt-in-your-mouth. They’re sandwiched with vanilla buttercream frosting. Perfect for holidays, baby showers, and more!
Easy Frosting Sandwich Cookies
These vanilla sandwich cookies are what I remember from childhood. Soft, buttery, light, delicate, and airy.
They’re not cakey and not dry, which are problems that can plague many sugar cookies. The wafer cookies themselves are more buttery than sweet, and the overall sweetness comes from the buttercream.
The melt-in-your-mouth quality is wonderful. The vanilla wafer cookies practically dissolve when you bite in, and then you hit the creamy, rich, and dense buttercream and it’s such a great contrast. The baked in sugar crystals also add a bit of texture and make you just want another one.
It’s really a good thing I didn’t make a larger batch because I could go to sandwich-cookie town on these. They remind me of being 10 years old and my mom and grandma leaving me alone with a container of them and in literally a half hour, the container was gone.
It’s just because pink food tastes better.
Ingredients for Vanilla Sandwich Cookies
To make the vanilla cookies with frosting in the middle, you’ll need the following ingredients:
- Butter
- Granulated sugar
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Cream or half and half
- Confectioners’ sugar
- Food coloring
How to Make Vanilla Sandwich Cookies
I’ve gone into detail below on how to make these vanilla frosting sandwich cookies. The instructions look lengthy because I’ve included all of my top tips!
You can scroll to the recipe card at the bottom of this post for the full ingredients list and instructions, if desired.
Step 1: Make the Cookie Dough
Interestingly, there’s no egg in the dough and it’s made by creaming one stick of butter with a small amount of sugar and vanilla before adding flour.
After adding the flour, the dough will be very sandy, pebbly, and dry.
Add half-and-half or cream one tablespoon at a time, and mix.
Heavy Cream Tip
The dough will will be on the soft and sticky side and in a small-batch recipe like this, one tablespoon makes a difference. If you need to add a third tablespoon, go for it.
Step 2: Chill the Cookie Dough
Transfer the dough to an airtight container and park it in the fridge for at least two hours, or up to five days, before rolling it out.
Step 3: Roll & Cut the Cookie Dough
Turn the dough out onto a floured Silpat Non-Stick Baking Mat or floured countertop and cover it with a piece of plastic wrap and roll it out to about one-eighth inch thick.
Tip
The plastic wrap prevents dough from sticking to the rolling pin and makes for an easier, neater, and cleaner job.
Use a 2-inch cookie cutter or biscuit cutter to make rounds. You may make them smaller, in the one-inch range using a shot glass as your cutter if you don’t have a one-inch cutter, but I frankly don’t have the patience for anything less than two inches. God Bless my mom and grandma; they did.
Re-roll your scraps and use every last bit of dough until it’s gone because this is a small batch recipe, yielding only about 26 wafers, or 13 sandwich cookies.
Step 4: Chill the Dough … Again
Place the rounds on a Silpat-lined baking tray and I refrigerated it for an hour before baking because after all that rolling, the dough was on the soft side and I didn’t want them to spread. I fit all 26 on one tray and they didn’t spread much at all.
Step 5: Bake the Cookies
Before baking, dredge each dough round through granulated sugar. It adds an extra dimension of texture and flavor to the smooth wafers and it’s a must.
After they’ve been sugared and are on the baking sheet, pierce each cookie with the tines of a fork three or four times, making tiny impressions that remind me of tiny button holes.
Tip
Piercing the cookies is not only decorative, but it gives the steam a place to escape so the cookies bake flat and don’t puff up like little air balloons.
Bake them at 350F for about 7 to 9 minutes. I baked for 8 and I urge you not to leave the kitchen and to watch them like a hawk, literally staring inside your oven starting at about 6 minutes.
They are small, full of butter, sugar, white flour, and are highly prone to burning.
Step 6: Make the Buttercream
While the cookies cool, make the buttercream. Beat one stick of butter, add confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, and beat until you have soft and fluffy buttercream, about 5 minutes.
Add food coloring slowly, in the color of your choice.
Step 7: Assemble the Vanilla Sandwich Cookies
Dollop a heaping teaspoon of frosting into the center of one cookie, top with a second cookie, rotating the second cookie and smooshing it down slightly so the frosting disperses.
I don’t bother with a pastry bag but if you like to make work for yourself, be my guest.
FAQs
They’ll look glossy and shiny even when they’re done. You want them to stay light and golden and don’t let them turn brown because the melt-in-your-mouth quality just won’t be there.
Pull them even if they look underdone because they firm up as they cool on the baking sheet.
Depending on your comfort level (because of the buttercream), wafer cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for a couple days, or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
My grandma and mom kept these cookies at room temperature for days, but store them based on your comfort levels.
I imagine you could freeze the wafer cookies and the buttercream frosting in separate containers, then bring both to room temperature and assemble them. However, I’ve not tried this myself so I can’t say for certain.
I would describe them as tender, flakey, and on the soft side. Definitely not crunchy or firm. It’s a very delicate cookie!
Of course! I love to make classic vanilla sandwich cookies with vanilla frosting in the middle, but you could also use marshmallow buttercream, Baileys frosting, peanut butter frosting, chocolate frosting, strawberry frosting, you name it!
Tips for Making Vanilla Sandwich Cookies
Sugar in the frosting: When making the frosting, feel free to play with the sugar ratio depending on how thick you like your buttercream.
I find 2 cups sugar gives me a frosting that’s just right for a job like this when I want a firmer frosting. If you like looser frosting, 1 1/2 cups will probably do the trick.
Adding the food coloring: Extracts and food colorings are two things you can’t un-do once they’re in, so go slowly when coloring the buttercream. I used about 10 drops of red and it caught me off guard how fast it turned rosy-red-pink rather than pale-pastel-pink.
Leftover frosting? I used all but 1/4 cup of the frosting and prefer to frost the cookies liberally and thickly. Leftover frosting can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.
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Buttery Vanilla Sandwich Cookies
Ingredients
For the Cookies
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened (1 stick)
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons+ half-and-half or cream, I used half-and-half
- about 1/2 cup granulated sugar, for dredging
For the Buttercream
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened (1 stick)
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ½ to 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- food coloring of your choice, I used 10 drops of red
Instructions
For the Cookies:
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or mixing bowl and hand mixer), add the butter and beat to soften and fluff it, about 1 minute.
- Add 1/4 cup granulated sugar, vanilla, and beat to cream ingredients until fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
- Add the flour and mix to incorporate it. The dough will be very sandy, pebbly, and dry. Add two tablespoons of half-and-half or cream and mix. The dough will come together and it will be on the soft and sticky side. If your dough is sandy and dry and hasn’t come together, add 1 additional tablespoon of cream, or as needed, so it combines. I used 2 tablespoons and cannot foresee needing more than 3 tablespoons of cream, but add cream very, very slowly until it combines.
- Wrap dough in plastic wrap and transfer it to an airtight container and refrigerate it for at least two hours, or up to five days, before rolling it out.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured Silpat Non-Stick Baking Mat or floured countertop and cover it with a piece of plasticwrap to prevent it from sticking to the rolling pin. Roll dough out to about one-eighth inch thick.
- Using a 2-inch cookie cutter or biscuit cutter, cut out the dough into rounds (or if desired, cut them smaller in the one-inch range. Use a shotglass if you don’t have a one-inch cutter). Re-roll your scraps and use every last bit of dough until it’s gone. I made 26 rounds to yield 13 sandwiches.
- Place rounds on a Silpat-lined, parchment-lined, or cooking sprayed baking sheet. I fit them all on one sheet. If dough has gotten soft while rolling and cutting it out, cover and refrigerate the tray for about an hour, which will help prevent spreading.
- Preheat oven to 350F. Before baking, place about 1/2 cup granulated sugar in a shallow bowl and dredge each dough round through the sugar and return sugared rounds to baking sheet. Piece each round three or four times with the tines of a fork to give steam a place to escape so the cookies bake flat and don’t puff up while baking.
- Bake for 7 to 9 minutes or just until they’ve set, rotating trays halfway through baking. I baked for 8 minutes. They’ll look glossy and shiny even when they’re done. Don’t let them turn brown in the least, and pull them even if they look underdone because they firm up as they cool. Don’t leave the kitchen and watch them like a hawk because they’re small, full of butter, white flour, sugar, and are highly prone to burning.
- Allow cookies to cool for about 5 minutes on baking trays before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.
For the Buttercream:
- While the cookies cool, make the buttercream. Beat one stick of butter to soften and fluff it, about 1 minute.
- Add 1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar (I don’t bother sifting), vanilla, and beat until soft and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Play with the sugar ratio depending on how thick you like your buttercream. I find 2 cups sugar gives me a frosting that’s just right for a job like this when I want a firmer frosting, but if you like looser frosting, 1 1/2 cups will probably do the trick.
- Add food coloring very slowly, in the color of your choice, and mix to incorporate.
- Frost one cookie generously with 1 to 2 tablespoons frosting, top with another cookie, sandwich them together, and lightly squeeze. Repeat until all cookies have been sandwiched. I don’t bother with a pastry bag and use a knife and spoon.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Easy Sandwich Cookies:
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Shortbread Sandwich Cookies – Chocolate filling is sandwiched between two buttery shortbread cookies before the cookies are dipped in sweet white chocolate and festively decorated!
Double Chocolate Peppermint Cookies — Rich, decadent, soft and chewy double chocolate cookies are sandwiched together with a tangy cream cheese filling before being rolled in crushed candy canes and drizzled with white chocolate for extra flavor and holiday festiveness!
Homemade Nutter Butter Cookies — Homemade copycat Nutter Butters are so much better than the store bought originals! Creamy peanut butter filling is sandwiched between lightly crunchy peanut butter cookies.
Raspberry Linzer Cookies — Linzer cookies are the ultimate sandwich cookies! A layer of raspberry jam is tucked in between two buttery, nutty cookies and dusted with powdered sugar!
I cannot thank you enough for posting this. My grandma raised me and made these every Xmas, but of course, I never bothered to ask her how they are made, only how soon would SHE have them made for me haha. Anyways, she passed with Alzheimer’s 3 yrs ago, and prior to that, while she was suffering with dementia, we realized too late that she had thrown out her recipe boxes…. Thousands upon thousands of collected & handwritten recipe cards spanning generations…. I have been hunting ever since for the very few recipes I can remember well enough to look for. And I have been searching for this cookie recipe for years now. I literally cried when I found your website, these are the EXACT same cookies I ate every Xmas!. Thank you.
If you see this comment, I’m curious if you happen to know where your own family originally got this recipe? My grandmother I know used some o.g.Betty Crocker recipes, but I would love to know if there are other sources I could dig thru.
Thanks for the 5 star review and I am glad so glad this recipe has been a winner for you, on every level. My grandma, who made these cookies, passed when I was in college – way too young to think I would ever want/need her recipes, or of all things, become a food blogger! She was never the type to write things down, so there wasn’t even anything documented as it was all in her memory. So, so many recipes died with her.
But I pieced together what I could from vintage cookbooks, my mom, and trial and error to come up with these cookies. There is not really one singular source. If you live in an area where there are churches that have ‘rummage sales’ or there are neighborhoods with elderly people and they have garage sales, out-of-print old timey cookbooks can be found but it’s a needle in a haystack and not always successful. Very little of the “good stuff” is found online IMO. It’s like actual digging through old dusty boxes at a yard sale.
Of all the recipes on my site, this one in particular gets a lot of people who write to me in the exact same position as you. Thank you for taking the time to share your story. People like you are why after 15+ years and 3000 recipes I keep going! Best wishes to you and your family 🙏🏻
I make these from an old cookbook. I have always frozen them. Nothing tastes as good in the freezer over 3 months.. but short term seems to work just fine.
Thanks so much for sharing this recipe. So similar to one I used to make when I was a kid, years ago. Been looking.
It seems like the one I made had cream cheese in it, but these look perfect!
Excited to try them out.
Enjoy it! I searched high and low for something similar to these and ultimately used a family recipe.
Would these cookies freeze well? I am making them for a wedding cookie table, and have a lot to make and want to get them done a week or two ahead of time.
They may but I haven’t tried and because they are for a wedding, I would definitely do a test batch and see how it goes.
I make these from an old cookbook. I have always frozen them. Nothing tastes as good in the freezer over 3 months.. but short term seems to work just fine.
Of course, the fresher the better. Glad these turned out well for you.
Do these hold up well enough to make ahead of time? Would like to serve these at a bridal shower but it would really help if I could make them a few days ahead of time. Thanks!
Yes they should hold well for you for a few days.
Are these soft or crunchy?
I would describe them as tender, flakey, and on the soft side. Definitely not crunchy or firm. A very delicate cookie.
I love these wafer cookies (always extremely popular) and was pleased to find your recipe. Mine (clipped from a magazine sometime in the 1970’s) does not include sugar in the dough. I needed to make a larger batch this time and doubled the recipe. Something seems amiss. I have always used a star shape cutter (for Christmas) but for some reason this time the stars shrank and are very misshapen after they come from the oven. Will try a different cutter tomorrow, but just wonder if I have overworked the dough. Any advice?
Thanks so much!
It sounds like the recipe of yours and this one were just different enough that the results were different. If you want the exact results you had with your recipe, use that one of course. It’s possible that you did overwork the dough too. These come out perfectly for me and are just like my grandma’s recipe so for me, they are perfect.
Hello. My mom makes these every christmas. I made two batches. The first cookies turned out flakey and light. The second batch was a bit chewier, still good but not the same. Do you have any idea what I might have done differently? I liked the first batch better. I’m wondering if I didn’t bake them long enough? But, some were slightly brown so I’m not sure that’s the answer. Suggestions?
Did you overwork the dough? Overdeveloping the gluten will cause tougher, chewier cookies. Use a very light hand with the flour when incorporating. Also weather can effect things, dryer days tend to produce flakier, lighter things than humid days.
They re look delicious! Want to try this.But I dont have half n half cream. What can I replace with?
Heavy cream.
I made these cookies last Christmas and they were a hit! I was wondering if you’ve tried using a cookie press instead of rolling/cutting out each cookie? I want to make a LOT of cookies this Christmas and thought this could be a real time saver. Thanks!
I have never made these with a cookie press but so glad make them and they were a hit! I love these cookies and they are very sentimental for me and I’m so happy you loved them!
I agree a cookie press would be a major timesaver though, I just haven’t tried it that way.
Thank you so much! My Grandmother made these cookies especially for baby and wedding showers. I thought I would find the recipe after she passed but no I couldn’t find it in her recipe box. I have been looking for it on and off for years (more years than I am willing to admit to :)).
The description you give of light and airy and dissolves instantly is exactly how they were. You could eat them all up in a minute or two. Just heavenly.
Thank you for giving me a little piece of my Grandma Ruth back. I find at this moment I am a little teary, so, bless your heart, I do appreciate it.
Gosh, thank you for this touching comment. The ENTIRE time I wrote this post nearly a few years ago now (and I write my posts and recipes spanning many days, I do it in bits and pieces) but every time I would go back and edit this one I was teary and thinking of my Grandma and my childhood memories the whole time. If you try this recipe, it’s as close to the recipe my grandma made as I have possibly come. Now, nothing tastes quite as good as grandma made because grandmothers have a special touch, but in your grandma’s absence, I hope this recipe does the trick. If you try it out, please write back and LMK what you think!!! xoxo
I just made these with my mom and sister today. We always called them Swedish Christmas cookies. My mom still has her original recipe, which also called for raw egg yolk in the filling. My mom and sister overruled me on the raw egg, even though we inhaled them by the handful when we were younger and none of us died :-p. A shot glass is too big IMO, because they are sooooooo rich, they’re best in little bite sized cookies. They are a lot of work (and I’d hate to know how many calories are in them), but they’re worth it!
Yes they are a lot of work!! but so worth it! I love them so much! Glad you have great memories from this cookie!
These look grat are they crisp wafers or chewy?
Melt in your mouth soft and buttery.
Have to tell you I used your cookie recipe for the base layer of a lemon bar recipe- sooo good, thank you! We always love your recipes!
thanks for LMK! I looooove these cookies. They’re a nostalgic fave.
Also this shortbread crust is the best https://www.averiecooks.com/2013/01/the-best-lemon-bars.html crust I’ve ever tried, b/c it’s not too hard. I wrote about why I love it so much. I love the bars AND the crust – if you need another lemon bar recipe, I stand behind that one, 100% :)
I used a similar principle in the crust in these Twix bars too https://www.averiecooks.com/peanut-butter-caramel-twix-bars/
will try your lemon bars next – don’t know why I didn’t find it when I was looking – thank you! The peanut butter caramel twix bars look delicious – on my list for a “cheat” day ;)
Thank you for all the wonderful recipes!!
Please keep me posted what you end up trying! The shortbread base on the Twix and the lemon bars is as good as the topping and that’s a huge statement for me b/c normally I don’t even like ‘crust’ or shortbread…but those, mmmm, I really loved!
these are so adorable! i love the frosting to cookie ratio : )