The yuletide season isn’t complete if you don’t serve a mouth-watering Christmas cookie to family and friends. Nobody would ever say no to these sweet treats that will surely bring fond memories of the Christmas season.
The best part about Christmas cookies is that they are easy to make, and there are plenty of recipes you can find online. Furthermore, these cookies come in all shapes and flavors. Hence, you can customize each batch depending on who they are intended for. This post discusses the best Christmas cookies recipe ever and why they have made it into our shortlist.
What are the Most Popular Christmas Cookie Recipes?
There are hundreds of Christmas cookie recipes, and all of them have their unique taste and texture. However, the most popular ones are often those that have a playful design or are easier to create, even for someone new to baking.
If you search the Internet using keywords like “Xmas cookies recipe,” you will likely get the recipes below:
- Christmas Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing
These cookies are known for their incredible taste and soft texture. It’s also easy to bake since they don’t spread in the oven. Hence, you can mold them to any shape you want, such as a candy cane. Adding colored sugar icing allows further customization of these Christmas frosted sugar cookies.
- Linzer Cookies
Linzer cookies are known for their zesty and buttery taste. Unlike other entities on this list, these cookies are not too sweet and are often filled with jam. You can also use other fruit preserves like cherry, apricot, dried cranberries, or red raspberry. This cookie also has a delicate and sandy crumb because of the almond flour in its dough. Meanwhile, some Christmas cookie recipes suggest using cake mix to make the mixture smoother and more consistent. Cake flour allows the cookie to be baked in larger sizes without falling apart.
- Soft and Chewy Ginger Cookies
This classic has an easy Christmas cookie recipe that you can make without fancy equipment. It’s loaded with ginger flavor, bringing warmth during the cold season. Add cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon sugar to bring out a sweet aroma. A perfectly cooked ginger cookie has crispy edges and a soft inside.
- Gingerbread Cookies
Gingerbread is another must-have Christmas cookie for every home. They can be cut into different shapes, such as the famous gingerbread men. Its brown color, crisp edges, soft center, and balanced spices are on another level. These chewy cookies resemble gingersnaps and go well with a dark chocolate drink. What sugar does in baking is simply magical. However, cookies don’t need to be overly sweet to be delicious. The gingerbread cookie is a testament that a homey flavor is also satisfying.
- Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
If you want to bake a cookie with a long shelf-life, then go for this holiday treat. Chocolate crinkles have crisp edges and a fudgy center. Meanwhile, the outer layer of the chocolate crinkle is smothered in powdered sugar, bringing extra sweetness to this snack. Sanding sugar into chocolate crinkle cookies is one of the best ways to make them extra sweet. However, this cookie can easily absorb the moisture in your mouth. Hence, drink water or any beverage after consuming a few pieces.
- Jam-Filled Thumbprint Cookies
Jam-filled thumbprints are easy Christmas cookies to make because it has few ingredients. It uses a simple cookie dough, but the real star is the jam you put in the center. You can also place an almond glaze on these Swedish cookies to amplify their flavor.
How to Make Easy Christmas Cookies
Baking Xmas cookies recipe is easy because you often need a few ingredients and use simple tools in your kitchen. However, a few things can go wrong and mess up the entire process. For example, not using the recommended water-to-flour ratio can make your dough dry or too watery. When baking, you need to follow the correct measurement of each ingredient, or you won’t get the right consistency, flavor, and texture of the cookies.
Furthermore, you must get the oven’s temperature and the baking time right. While most cookie recipes require an oven, there are also no-baked options wherein you can use a microwave instead. Some cookies are made by frying them in a pan. However, these cookies tend to be hard and crumbly.
The first step in making a Christmas cookie is gathering all the ingredients mentioned in the recipe. If you’re missing an ingredient or two, check if there are alternatives that you can get.
What are the Ingredients for Christmas cookies?
Simple Christmas cookies have just a few ingredients you can quickly get from the local market. Here are the ingredients for Christmas frosted sugar cookies that you can do in your kitchen.
Cookie Dough Ingredients
- 2 cups of flour
- 1 ¼ teaspoon of baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon of salt
- 250 grams of unsalted butter (about 2 sticks)
- ¾ cup of sugar
- 1 egg
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
Icing Ingredients
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 2 large egg whites
- 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
- Food coloring
What Tools do you Need for Christmas Cookies?
- Medium and large bowls
- Whisk
- Stand mixer
- Patry piping bags
- Tablespoon and teaspoon
- Measuring cup
- Plastic wrap
- Flat spatula
- Rolling pins
- Baking sheets
- Christmas character cookie characters
- Oven
- Wire rack
A chocolate chip cookie is perhaps the first thing that crosses people’s minds when you ask them to think of cookies. The melt-in-your-mouth chocolate and the coarse texture are a good combination. However, cookies made from browned butter, flour, and chocolate kisses might be too simple for your taste. Like in cooking, it’s not only the taste buds that should be satisfied. People often judge a cookie as tasty or not by its appearance.
How Early Can I Make Christmas Cookies?
Depending on the Christmas cookies you want to make, you can prepare them anywhere within a few days and two months before December 25. The general rule is that moist or fluffy cookies have shorter shelf life than drier ones. If you want to keep the crunch or chewiness of your cookies, store them in airtight containers properly.
Never put your cookies in the refrigerator since the moisture from the cold can break the cookies. It’s better to keep them in the freezer instead. However, cookies with custard or cream filling must be refrigerated so they won’t go stale quickly.
Here are a few famous Christmas cookies and their average expiration period:
- Brandy Snaps – about one week
- Lace cookies – about one week
- Sugar cookies – a month
- Moravian Spice cookies – two months
- Gingerbread folks – three months tops
How to Decorate Using Cookie Cutters?
Even if the shape and color of the cookie have little to do with the taste, it’s worth customizing them. Adding icing to a Christmas cookie adds another layer of sweet flavor while improving its aesthetics.
Here is how to bake cookies the quick and easy way.
- Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized bowl. Then, set aside the flour mixture.
- Put the butter in the stand mixer’s bowl. Ensure it’s at room temperature and mixes evenly with other ingredients.
- Turn on the mixer at medium speed for about a minute. Meanwhile, gradually add the sugar. This method makes the cookie flat which is crucial when adding icing that won’t fall on the side. Scrape the mixture from the paddle using a rubber spatula.
- In a separate bowl, whisk one egg and the vanilla together. Turn the mixture at medium speed for about 30 seconds for both ingredients to mix well. Scrape the excess mixture using the same kitchen tool.
- Using the same bowl in step 4, set the mixer to low and add the flour mixture. Mix it for about one minute or until all the ingredients have been incorporated into the dough.
- Get a plastic wrap and put the dough into it. Flatten the dough and put it in the refrigerator for a minimum of two hours. For the best result, you can chill it for two to three days. This method allows the butter to firm up again and makes it less likely to stick when rolling the dough.
- Flour your counter and take out the dough from the fridge. Next, flour the dough and the rolling pin. Dusting flour prevents the dough will stick to anything.
- Starting from the center, roll out the dough using the rolling pin. Use a spatula to lift the dough and add more flour under it. Repeat the rolling process.
- Stop rolling when the dough is about ¾ inch thick, and add the final flour dust.
- Place a cookie cutter on the flattened dough and just press. Make sure it has at least half an inch of space between each piece.
- If you have leftover dough, wrap them in plastic and repeat steps six to ten.
From here, it’s just a matter of baking the cookies at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for ten minutes. Once it has cooled, you can add the icing. These cookies can last for about a week when stored properly. Thus, you can ship them to relatives and friends in time for Christmas.
Christmas is one of the most festive days of the year. Baking cookies and sending them to loved ones and friends is a simple gesture during the season of giving. Everyone in your household can make cookies, and it’s one of the best skills you can teach your kids.
To make your cookies more special, you can mold them into different fun shapes using Christmas cookie cutters. You can also add various food coloring to make it more visually appetizing. Meanwhile, baking and cookie stencils will add more detail to the cookie.
