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 the dough a few days before I rolled to make cookies. The dough was in the fridge for 4 days, I brought to room temperature before rolling, the were beautiful delicious cookies. Very simple. Yet so so good.
What brand of flour are you using where 3 cups is 450 grams?? I used the weight measurements and ended up with a crumbly mess. My golds flour is only 130 grams per cup
Sarah, I always have too much flour with the weight measurement regardless of the recipe. I’m in the US and perhaps since growing conditions are different our flour is “drier”? I have tried higher end brands (King Arthur & Bob Mills) available in the grocery stores to store brands to no avail. I’ve just learned to adjust accordingly (about 128g/cup measurements provided in recipe) and use less flour overall.
Also, if you go back to the original source recipe, you will see that the weigh is 315g for 2.5 cups of Gold flour or 126g/cup with the other ingredients relatively the same to Nagi’s recipe. I truly think Nagi has access to different flour than I do. Not bad, just different. Sorry.
Haha maybe! Flour is a finicky thing. I’ll try again and do the same as you. Hopefully it works out; they look really nice!
Also, traditionalovens.com lists an Australian cup of all purpose flour in grams to be 132.09g, so again, I think it has to be differences in flour.
I’d love to know how they turn out with the changes.
Hi Sarah – I test all my recipes (especially cookies) with both US and Australian cup measures as they vary. If you have a scale, always use my weight measures as written as that’s the most accurate way to bake. I am not sure what happened with your cookies but I make them regularly with 150 gram cups and they turn out fine each time. Did you weight the other ingredients as well? You have to weigh all of the ingredients or use cups for all of them – you cannot swap between the two. N x
Yeah, I strictly prefer baking by weight so I used the scale for all my ingredients. I’ll try again soon with the another conversion and see what happens. Thanks for getting back to me!
Can the butter be melted?
No Kayla – sorry! N x
Hi Nagi. What should I do if the adjusted recipe calls for 0.3 egg? Should I only use the yolk?
Hi Serena – just measure out the beaten egg and take 1/3 of the total. N x
Can I substitute margarine for butter
Butter is usually a substitute for margarine 🤔
Hi Nagi it’s my first time ever making Christmas sugar cookies and I really don’t want to mess them up is it possible for me to do this recipe with just my hands I don’t have a hand or stand mixer and is it cool if I just use Betty Crocker whipped frosting instead of making my own
Hi I’m very glad I came across your Christmas cookie recipe I’m gone try baking them tonight your recipe is very simple to make so thank you so much for sharing.
Hi Nagi! I love this recipe because it requires little ingredients and it takes very little time! However, I do have some questions that I hope you can help to troubleshoot! I baked the cookies a couple of days back and although initially the texture was just to my liking, in the next few hours, the cookies became way too soft and lost its firmness that it had initially post-bake, could there be a reason why? After the cookies cooled, I kept them in air tight ziplock bags and containers, but on the next day, they were all soft (but not chewy); it’s as if they lost their crunch and firmness (it felt as though they were already a week old cookies or that they were already stale). Hope you can help so I can improve on them! Thank you so much(:
Hi Chelsea – they could soften if it’s a particularly humid day or if they weren’t baked quite long enough. N x
Thank you, they taste delicious! All my friends loved them 🙂
Can you put them in the freezer?
Thank you, I love your recipes!
Yes you can freeze them unfrosted! N x
Thanks, this recipe is perfect. I was able to make 48 cookies. They taste amazing too.
Most delicious cookies and super easy to make. Kids had great fun decorating after ❤️
It was my first time making Christmas cookies, easy recipe, and they taste so yummy.
I’m so glad you enjoyed them Zeinab! N x
Can you use GF flour with this recipe? Thanks
I am not exaggerating when I say this recipe makes the absolute most perfect cookies!! I historically never got along very well with this type out of biscuit, and I just couldn’t believe how simple and wonderful the results are. So beautifully tasty, buttery, soft in the middle but firm. Truly divine! I added a wee taste of cinnamon to mine and it complimented the recipe beautifully. Thank you so much for sharing, this is my new go-to recipe!
Hi Nagi,
Can I refrigerate the dough? if so for how long?
Thank you
Hi Zeinab – I think it would be ok for 1-2 days in the fridge. N x
Hi Nagi,
Do you think this will be a good batch to make for 20-25 people, or would I need to make two?
Hi Nagi!
I am going to make these Christmas cookies but I would like to know, how can I store the cookies after baking them?
See Note 4 under the recipe Shan! N x
Hey Nagi!
I was wondering if these christmas cookies are nut free? I’m planning to make these for my friends and one of them is anaphylaxis.
Thanks!
Hi Kat – yes they are nut free. N x
Hi I love to bake
Hi Nagi! I was wondering how many cookies does this recipe make and how thick does the dough need to be rolled out.
Hi Nagi! Just planning o make these for Christmas. How many cookies does the recipe make.