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 used cooking salt and I could taste it when I was eating the cookies. Should I reduce the measurement by 2 1/4tsp?
Hello Nagi, these taste amazing and are sooooo easy to make, but I don’t know what I did wrong – they spread out A LOT during baking and didn’t keep their shape at all. I’m so confused, I followed your recipe to a tee.
I’d love to get some help with troubleshooting this!
Love this recipe. This was my first attempt and it was a hit !
Wow brilliant recipe
The thicker cookies were exactly as you said softer. The dough was easy to use and the end result was great. Dipped some in chocolate the rest were iced for Christmas. Excellent.
Love this recipe. This was my first attempt and it was a hit !
I was looking for a quick sugar cookie recipe and as usual, I was not disappointed. Why would you bother with the recipes that require chilling? This biscuit had a great crumb and was deliciously buttery. Awesome recipe, thank you Nagi!
Hi Nagi, can the uncooked dough be frozen? My daughter was keen to start baking before cutting out shapes from the second half of the Dough. Can this be done so we can do the baking over a few days?
Made these with my grandchildren (4 & 3) – I pre-made the dough – they did the rolling and cutting. Delicious and lots of fun
Fourth year in a row making these Christmas cookies and they are foolproof! Excellent recipe, great tips, they are impossible to mess up and they’re always a big hit
Most amazing recipe I have been making every Christmas and is ALWAYS a hit and sensational!!!
The BEST RECIPE EVER!
SUPER easy to mange with no chill time ave turned out great. I’ve tried many recipes and toys one is by far my favorite. Apart works great to freeze and can eat right out of freezer!
The BEST RECIPE EVER!
SUPER easy to mange with no chill time ave turned out great. I’ve tried many recipes and toys one is by far my favorite
First time review for one of your recipes. I’d just like to say these are amazing. You made something that I usually dread doing super simple. The cookies held their shape amazingly with absolutely no cooling needed which is exactly what I was looking for. And to top it off they taste amazing! Me and my kids practiced making a batch ready to gift to their teachers however we ended up eating most of them so I’m going to make another batch! Thank you for this simple to follow recipe
Just made these! Absolutely delicious. Thanks Nagi for your simple and delicious recipes! Totally recommend ❤️
I find all your recipes accurate and easy to the T . Thanks ! Specifically I love the pan Asian ones since I’m from India and LOVE Asian food
Hi Nagi and the RTE community, I am going to make these for my daughter’s baby shower. I have made up a batch of these sugar cookies to see if this is what she wants and they were perfect.So my question is are these cookies good to put fondant on? Are the any suggestions on what homemade glue would work? And lastly if I store the dough in the fridge how long do I need to get it out of the fridge for it to be ready to roll and how long can I store it in the fridge before using? Would really appreciate any tips. Thanks.
I just realised I was supposed to say edible homemade glue.
These are so good!
So easy and I love that you don’t have to chill in fridge before rolling out and baking.
I made these for my daughter’s 1st birthday and used the adorable animals cookie cutters.
They held their shape and tasted amazing.
Thank you Nagi!!
My boys and I love these cookies. Do you think it would be ok to add M&Ms into them ? Thank you
no m&ms will make them throw up and vomit all over your kitchen
no m&ms will make them throw up and vomit all over your kitchen
These are absolutely delicious and such a crowd pleaser!
In terms of the q’s about freezability – I froze my iced cookies (once they’d set) in layers (with baking paper in-between them) in an airtight container. I put a layer of foil over the very top to ‘tuck them in’ before putting the lid on. They froze beautifully and when needed, defrosted quickly on the kitchen bench within a few hours. Quality was great 👍🍪🩷
I loved making these cookies! So easy to make. I don’t know where I went wrong but my cookies expanded in the oven. I suspect because it was a really hot day when I was making them, making it hard to roll the dough thin enough but they went down a treat! Thanks Nagi!
This is probably one of the easiest Xmas cookies recipes I have ever used. Easy to handle and delicious. I didn’t decorate them but used an embossed rolling pin and round cookie cutter which worked perfectly. Thanks Nagi
I hate making sugar cookies and this was the easiest recipe to follow! I love that you don’t have to refrigerate the dough and when using cookies cutters the cookies came out sharp!