Take a break from the Christmas madness to make Christmas Cookies! These sugar cookies are classic vanilla biscuits that are made for cutting out shapes because they hold their shape perfectly when baked.
NO CHILL time, make them soft OR crispy. Ice them my EASY way, dip in chocolate, dust with icing sugar or serve them plain!
Christmas Cookies
What I call “Christmas Cookies” are simply vanilla biscuits cut out in Christmas shapes and iced with colourful festive frosting. They taste like shortbread cookies, but not quite as buttery or crumbly. They are as classic as vanilla biscuits can be.
This particular biscuit recipe is made for cutting out shapes – in this case, Christmas shapes. Most cookies spread snd puff up so they bear little resemblance to the shape you expected!
But these hold their shape perfectly – as you can see by the sharp ridges and corners in the photo below.
What you need for Christmas Cookies
The nice thing about these Christmas Cookies is that they’re made with pantry staples – so there’s no need to add to your ever growing Christmas grocery shopping list!!!
How to make Christmas Cookies
Unlike most cookie doughs suitable for cutting out shape, there’s no chill time required for this recipe. Ain’t nobody got time for chilling during Christmas madness – right??!
Bonus: the dough is easy to handle and can be scrunched up and rolled up again over and over until you’ve used up every scrap.
Because these are sweet vanilla biscuits, they are flavoured enough and sweet enough to serve plain. But if you are inclined to ice them, pop over to my Icing for Christmas Cookies (PS I also share my quick ‘n easy way to ice them!)
So. Many. Cookies.
A sight that will catapult anyone into serious Christmas spirit!!
Make these for Santa, your family, or (if you’re really feeling the holiday spirit) maybe even to gift to someone.
And don’t worry. This is a big batch recipe. Nibble away, no one will miss one or two or five!! 😉 – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Christmas Cookies (Vanilla Biscuits / Sugar Cookies)
Ingredients
- 225g / 1 cup unsalted butter , softened (or use salted, skip salt)
- 1 cup caster/superfine sugar (granulated/ordinary white sugar ok too)
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg (55-60g / 1.9-2oz)
- 3 cups flour , plain / all purpose
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp salt
Icing for Sugar Cookies
Instructions
- Preheat Oven to 180°C / 350°F (160°C fan). Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl until creamy (1 minute on speed 5)
- Add egg and vanilla, beat until completely combined.
- Add flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Start mixing slowly, then beat until the flour is incorporated – it will be clumpy.
- Dust work surface with flour, scrape dough out of bowl. Pat together then cut in half, then shape into 2 discs.
- Roll out to 0.3cm / 1/8" (for thinner, crispier cookies) or 0.6cm / 1/4" (for thicker, softer cookies), sprinkling with flour under and over the dough so it doesn't stick.
- Use cookie cutters to press out shapes and use a knife or spatula to transfer shapes to prepared baking sheets. (Keep dough that doesn’t fit in the oven in the fridge).
- Bake for 10 minutes, swapping trays halfway (Note 2), until the surface is pale golden and the edges are just beginning to turn light golden.
- Allow cookies to cool completely on trays (they will finish cooking on the trays).
Decorating options:
- Icing – see Icing for Christmas Cookies recipe.
- Melt chocolate then dip the surface into chocolate.
- Dot with icing sugar and decorated with silver balls
- Dust with icing sugar
- Serve plain! They are sweet vanilla biscuits so they are wonderful eaten just as they are!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Originally published 2019. Reviewed and refreshed as needed every year or so. No change to recipe, it’s a classic!
Life of Dozer
When Dozer got his very own personalised Christmas cookie!!
I made these today and they were delicious! But my dough was super crumbly, I added a tiny bit of water to help make it more malleable but still very tricky to work with. Any tips? I double checked the recipe but maybe the egg wasn’t big enough or I slightly under measured the butter? Is water ok to add?
Just want to say that these are the BEST cookies! My family has to eat gluten free, so we swap regular flour for GF flour, and they are perfect! Thank you for the recipe!
thank you for this comment, I have a recently diagnosed coeliac 5yo and he missed out on our christmas tradition of baking cookies last year. Do you do a 1 for 1 swap or do you need more/less GF flour?
Thank you Brelin, came to look for this answer. Not long found out my son is ceiliac and we love making biscuits for Santa at Christmas time.
I have family members I enjoy making gluten free recipes for. In Canada, I used Real Canadian Superstore President’s Choice (PC) brand of GF 1-to-1 flour and they were very yummy. Our family had fun icing Hallowe’en themed cookies recently. We plan to do them for Christmas next. 🙂 I thought this might help Canadian celiac home chefs to know that the Cdn. PC brand was very successful in this recipe!
Amazing. I did these for my eisteddfod competition, and it turned out so good. I also used the matching icing with it!
Ok to make these with a stand mixer yeah?
Delicious!! I made these for neighbours and friends. Beautiful flavour and so easy to make.
Made these with my 4 year old for an Xmas treat! They were fun and great to make! We added some cinnamon and slightly less sugar and they were still tasty! Next time we will try 3/4 cups.of sugar I think. Ours didn’t really brown in the oven but no problems. I only had round cutters so we used leftover batter and choc chips to make snowmen! With funny faces and buttons on their belly. Fun all round 💜
This recipe requires more flour than suggested. If you are in Australia baking at Christmss you will need to chill the dough.
Great recipe. The dough was wonderful to work with. Thank you and merry Christmas
My grandma (and I) always keep my cooked and iced sugar cookies in the freezer, this keeps them fresh for ages and they are perfect! Just take them out of the freezer ~10 mins before serving.
These are the most amazing cookies, they are so easy to make, you don’t even need to chill them ! thanks so much Nagi, i will be sure to use this and some other recipes from you in the future 🙂
I absolutely loved the the holiday cookies I bake them every December with the help of my sister.Thanks Nagi 😃
I’m new at baking how many days before Christmas can I bake these if I’m giving them out for gifts? How long will this last?
Fantastic recipe. So easy to handle and cookies hold their shape. This is a keeper for sure. Thank you.
Wondering if anyone has made these at high altitude? Always looking for the perfect sugar cookie to cook in Colorado! Thank you!
I just finished baking my first batch a couple of minutes ago and had to rush here to thank you for this recipe!! I’m in love, it has great taste and it’s super easy to make!!
How many grams is 3 cups of flour please? Thank you in advance 🙂
Can someone tell me the measurements in gms? My dough was soft, not abke to cut.
They are delicious, I cooked the longer, as at the 10 mins mark they were very white, but I’m not an expert, is it 10 mins total?
Made these today and turned out great! Easy dough to work with.
Wondering CAN THEY BE FROZEN – either raw dough or cooked??? Thanks
Yes, the raw dough can be frozen, either as a lump of dough or you could cut out the cookies, open freeze on trays, then pack in boxes with freezer paper in between to keep them separate. Either way, you canthen just take out the amount you need, and leave the rest in the freezer for another time. If you freeze the cut out cookies you can bake them from frozen, too, though you may need to add a couple of minutes to the bake time, but still, fresh-baked cookies in a flash.
Yes, the raw dough can be frozen, either as a lump of dough
I have frozen baked uniced ones and they were perfect! Great for making ahead and large batches
Love this recipe, makes delicious cookies and the instructions are perfect for cooking times etc. Somehow ended up with nearly 80 cookies from one batch, using Coles Christmas cookie cutters, and I am super happy with the result, love recipie tin eats, and always my go to for great baking recipes.