Vanilla Wafer Cookies

This Vanilla Wafer Cookies recipe makes delicious, thin and crispy butter cookies that are perfect for family, guests and special occasions.

Homemade vanilla wafers will make your Banana Pudding special while saving you money on the store bought variety.

Your homemade Vanilla Wafer Cookies will taste fresher and buttery, too.

They contain butter.

Vanilla Wafer Cookies Recipe

• 2/3 cup butter
  
  
• 1/2 cup sugar
  
  
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  
  
• 1 egg
  
  
• 2 tablespoons whole milk
  
  
• 1 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
  
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
  
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
  
  
• Additional sugar for sprinkling
  

Prepare cookie baking sheets and sugar tray.*

A baking sheet with sides works best with these cookies because the sides help prevent the cookies from browning too fast.

Set aside.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt.

Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar in mixing bowl until light.

Stir in vanilla.

Add egg and milk and beat until light and fluffy.

Gently fold in flour mixture until mixed well.

Do not over beat when adding the flour.

This will assure your cookies are tender.

Place a level teaspoon of batter 1 1/2 inch apart on cookie sheet.

Bake 12-15 minutes in a 300F. preheated oven until cookies are lightly browned around the edges. 

Remove cookies from oven and let set about 5 minutes.


With metal spatula, gently lift cookies from baking sheet and place on prepared sugar tray to finish cooling.

Slightly lift the parchment paper and gently peel the cookies off the paper and place them in the bed of sugar

Sift a light coat of sugar over warm cookies. Let cool.

Store cooled cookies in a container that is ventilated to keep them crisp.

Do Not place them in a container with a tight fitting lid unless you want them to be very soft.

Cut parchment paper the size of your cookie sheets and place in the pans.

Place a light coating of butter on top of the parchment paper.

Set aside.

If you use the same cookie sheet to bake subsequent batches of cookies you will not need to butter the paper again.

Prepare a large tray or platter by sifting a layer of fine granulated sugar on it.

You will be placing your cookies on top of this sugar after removing them from your pans.

These cookies are delicious with puddings, ice cream or just a glass of milk.

The above Old Fashioned Recipe originated from the Bureau of Home Economics, United States Government Printing Office more than 80 years ago.

I added to/edited the method of preparing per my experience.

History Of Vanilla Wafers

In the late 1800s, a German-American confectioner named Gustave A Mayer, created a new vanilla cookie recipe on Staten Island.

Mayor sold his wafers recipe to Nabisco in 1898 who started selling the cookies by his name.

He called them Nabisco Vanilla Wafers.

By the 1940s, vanilla wafers had become a major ingredient in banana puddings, so Nabisco made a wise decision and had a banana pudding recipe, using their own Nabisco Vanilla Wafers, printed on the outside of the box.

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