I love the holidays. I love the lights, the music, the gift giving, but most importantly I love the single greatest treat ever invented; the Royal Dansk cookie. Yes, Royal Dansk… that blue tin in your parents’ bedroom that mom kept her sewing supplies or her weed and pain killer stash in. That same tin of parental debauchery once contained the single greatest treat ever invented in the history of humankind; the Danish butter cookie. The butter cookie has a long history in the Nordic region of Europe, being known in that area as Brysselexs, Sables, and Danish Biscuits. In 1966 the Royal Dansk company began putting out butter cookies in blue tins that became a common household item, and from there became the global force in butter cookie production.
At this point, I feel I need to point out that there are many companies produce Danish butter cookies. However, if they aint Royal Dansk, then they are trash. I was recently fooled into eating a phony Dansk’s cookie and it was a living nightmare. A company called Cambridge and Thames puts out Danish butter cookies in the same shapes and sizes as Dansk’s….AND THEY PUT THEM IN A BLUE TIN. Such lies. My sister surprised me with a tin the last time she stopped over, and clouded in excitement, I ate one of these small buttery lies. I gagged after discovering the truth of the deception placed in my mouth upon seeing the tin was not of the Royal Dansk approved image of the Hjemstavsgarrd farm house! *
Anyway, my sister is now dead to me, and I thought I would list for you the top 5 Royal Dansk cookies.
#5 The Finnish Bread Cookie. This is the square one with a little sugar glaze. Not too bad, but not the best of the bunch. Little on the crunchy side, you may need a sip of milk to fully enjoy it. Sometimes this guy is rough the tongue. I think they make these out of respect to Finland, who’s cookies are not as great as the Danes…but Dansk makes them anyway in tribute to rough and tough Finnish snipers who bagged a ton of Nazis in WW2. **
#4 The Coconut Style Cookie. Normally I would list this one as #5 because lots of people don’t like this round little crispy cookie due to the fact that people don’t dig on coconut. But that’s what makes it great. If you go to grandma’s holiday party, most people already snagged the rest of the cookies out of the tin…but there is a giant pile of coconut style ones all for you buddy. Grab them all and sneak off to the basement with uncle Mike who’s watching a R rated movie and don’t care if you hang with him. Uncle Mike’s ambient cigarette smoke in the basement really brings out the flavor in these. Enjoy.
#3 The Country Cookie. Round and a little darker than the others, its crispy with a hint of the buttery Dansk goodness but not full-blown Dansk butter power. I call this the gateway cookie. You can start with the Country Cookie, but it will make you go harder into the cookie choices. Unlike the Finnish or the Coconut cookie, you physically cannot eat one of these without immediately grabbing for a Pretzel or Vanilla Ring cookie. One time I opened a tin and ate one of these, and noticed someone cleaned out the Pretzel and Vanilla cookies which led me to drive around all night until I found a drug store that had them. I bought the lot. Dropped one off on Chuk’s porch in the night like a Dutch Santa.
#2 The Pretzel. This is the second of the crystalized sugar family of Dansk cookies…but it’s also shaped like a pretzel making it way more awesome than the Finnish Bread Cookie. Fill your mouth with milk, then shove like three of these in and let them soften up for an explosion of deliciousness. Or, put your tongue in the little pretzel hole and make a dumb face then pull it into your mouth like you are some evil holiday serpent. Bob and I like to weave eachother arms in a totally platonic way as we feed eachother a Dansk pretzel and laugh at our own silliness. I was close to making this #1 but these cookies have a fatal flaw…they are often found broken in the tin and sometimes you got to eat them in little pieces. Not nearly as fun.
#1 The Vanilla Ring Cookie. This is the undisputed champion of the Dansk tin. Buttery, vanilla, soft, spiral, and perfect. Typically, this is the first cookie people go after once the tin is cracked open. Unlike most I like to savor the Vanilla Rings...I have been training for years to force myself in a little game of self-control to pick the other cookies first, and reward myself with delicious Vanilla Ring Cookie last. However, the Vanilla Ring is also the most stolen cookie from the tin, and if not properly hidden; every member of the family that has proclaimed that these cookies are gross and would rather have stupid “hurt your teeth” frosted cookies, will end up stealing and eating all of the Vanilla Ring cookies out of the tin. Hypocrites and liars the lot of em. That’s why the Vanilla Ring Cookie is number one. Because they are the favorite of the butter cookies by connoisseurs and haters alike. No one can resist the Dansk Vanilla Butter Cookie. I wrote Dansk a few letters and sent them some videos begging them to just sell the Vanilla Butter Cookie by itself, and they sent me something called a “ceaseanddesist” but I can’t speak Danish so don’t know what that’s about.
Anyway. It’s the season of Dansk. And for $2.99 plus tax, you too can ride a buttery ecstasy train for a few nights.
Happy Holidays from BoCHuey.
*This is a real thing. Look it up.
**There no evidence to support this.