These are the BEST Butterhorns with swirls of rich, buttery layers and topped with sweet frosting straight from my Grandmother’s recipe box. They are so much better than your regular sweet roll!
Inside my Great-Grandmother’s Old Recipe Box is a butterhorn recipe. When I first saw it I was like “What is a butterhorn?” I had never tried a homemade butterhorn before and knew I wanted to try to make them. They turned out to be a soft buttery gorgeous roll drizzled with a sweet frosting glaze. Mmmm.mmmm..good.
Here is the recipe card. The card is really old and I imagine her typing this out with an old fashioned typewriter. Can you picture it?
When it was time to cook these I gathered up my ingredients. Then got to work.
The cast of ingredients wasn’t too hard – flour, sugar, eggs, milk, butter, yeast and salt. I had all those ingredients on hand.
HOW TO MAKE BUTTERHORNS
I followed the directions from the recipe card, however this first batch I didn’t cool my milk long enough and it killed my yeast. The dough never would raise up. So I tried the recipe again the second day and it worked like a charm.
So note to you all – don’t add the yeast when your milk is too hot.
This dough was really really sticky, so after it’s mixed up I greased a bowl and added the dough inside to let rise. It was doubled after an hour.
Next, I took the dough and split it in half.
Then I rolled out each half, buttered it, and cut it into 16 pie slices.
The directions say then to roll them all up individually and place on cookie sheet to rise again. Here is how it looks when you roll them up.
After about 40 minutes of rise time again they went into the oven to bake.
While they were baking I made the frosting as directed on the recipe (only I didn’t have cream hanging around, so I used my raw milk, trying to get the top part that sometimes is cream). Either way it was wonderful..and very delicious.
I drizzled it onto the Butterhorns when they came out of the oven and they looked so pretty.
And buttery.
And delicious.
Expert Tips
Make sure your milk is the right temperature before adding it in to the rest of the ingredients. For active dry yeast, the temperature should be between 105 and 110°F.
The dough will be sticky! Dust the counter top with flour before you start rolling out your dough. Sprinkle flour over the rolling pin then roll the rolling pin over the flour you sprinkled on the counter to cover it on all sides. Then add your dough onto the flour-covered surface and you are ready to roll…literally.
Use a pizza cutter to cut the dough into 16 pieces. Trust me, it makes cutting the dough into equal pieces so much easier than using a knife.
My opinion on these Butterhorns? I don’t know…I liked them but I didn’t LOVE them. I guess I wanted them to be a bit more sweet or something. My kids thought they died and went to heaven though – they LOVED them! In fact they were all gone by that next morning.
If you liked this butterhorn recipe from my Grandmother’s Recipe Box check out these other ones!
- Great Grandma’s Apple Brown Betty Recipe
- Vintage Sunshine Cake Recipe
- Great Grandma’s Mile High Pumpkin Sundae Pie
- Chocolate Jumbles {From my Great Grandmothers Old Recipe Box}
- Grandma’s Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits Recipe
If you bake these up let me know what you think as well. It’s fun to try new recipes out – especially old fashioned ones.
Butterhorns
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Melted Butter
- 2 Eggs
- 1/4 cup Sugar
- 1 tbsp Red Star Yeast or 1 instant yeast package
- Pinch of Salt
- 3/4 cup lukewarm milk
- 3 cups Flour
Frosting
- 1/2 cup Powdered sugar
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla
- fresh cream to thin
Instructions
- Add your yeast to the warm milk. Then add butter, sugar, eggs, then flour. Mix until well incorporated and the dough is sticky.
- Add to an oiled bowl, cover and let rise until twice in size.
- Split dough in half. Roll out 1/4 inch thich in a circle.
- Spread with butter.
- Cut 16 pie shaped wedges then roll each from outer edge.
- Lightly cover and let rise again.
- Bake 20 minutes at 375 degrees.
- Frosting: Mix together powdered sugar, vanilla and cream to thin. Frost or drizzle on top of butterhorns while hot.
🤔 at the beginning you say these are the best. Then at the end you say you like them but you don’t LOVE them. Hmmm
Haha this is the best recipe is what I meant. It is easy to follow and makes beautiful butterhorns. But for me personally, I liked them but I prefer a sweeter roll. But if you are looking for a good recipe for butterhorns, this one is fantastic!! 🙂
I remember my mother made butter horns similar to this. But, hers had cardamom and nuts sprinkled on top.
Ooh that sounds good, too!
I love this simple and forgiving recipe!
It’s our favourite and I make it as cinnamon buns weekly.
Thank you for sharing.
I’ve made this recipe several times now, and I use the dough to make very yummy cinnamon buns. I always marvel at the fluffiness of the dough. Thank you for sharing this recipe!