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!!
These are our ‘go to’ Christmas cookie recipe that we bake as a family together and have a decorating competition. Thanks Nagi!
How so very few pantry staples can combine into a beautiful rolling cookie dough in minutes, and then bake in the oven for 10 minutes, to create the most delicious cookie I’ve ever tasted, is a Christmas miracle! I’d like to say will have some cut outs left over to decorate tomorrow, but at this gobble rate I’ll probably need to make a second batch. Yay! Thanks again, Nagi. Much joy and light to you and Mr D!
This was actually my first time to ever make Christmas cookies. They were absolutely delicious and couldn’t have turned out more perfect! Thanks for an easy to follow and fun recipe. I’ll definitely be saving this one for future use!
Hi Nagi. Can I use margerine instead of butter? If so, should I use the same ratio?
Hello, I would think that margarine would work fine, if not better. Margarine is softer and is easier to beat, just make sure not to overbeat!
It was very easy to make
Hi Nagi
Would this recipe work to make mini houses?
Thank you for your time.
Maybe if you make thinner, harder cookies they could work, but I don’t think so, cookies are too crumbly and soft.
Hi nagi this recipe is sooooo
Delious. They have the perfect crunch. thankyou !!!!😀
Perhaps it’s because I was much lower on sugar than I thought, but the dough was not compatible with cookie cutters… or shaping at all. My sugar was a combination of the last bits of regular cane sugar, last bits of turbinado, and a few sprinkles of brown sugar to get the correct weight. Cookies came out absolutely delicious! I could barely work with the dough to even shape dough balls because it was so melted-y. I’m 99% sure it’s just because of the warm kitchen and my impatience (didn’t want to chill dough). Taste is wonderful, the crisp level is PERFECT.
Nagi – just made this recipe but substituted gluten free flour for my son and husband — the cookies are amazing – held their shape, sharp edges and are delicious! Thank you!!
Good to know Heather! Thanks! N x
Hi I was just reading through your recipe for the sugar cookies and looking forward to trying it. I think you might mean roll out the cookies to 3 mm or 6 mm rather than cm or they will be pretty thick cookies lol
Hi Sue! It’s written as .3 or .6 cm (so between a third to just over a half a cm)..Thanks! N x
do you treat tray prior to baking?
Hi Ron – I use baking paper as per Step 1 of the recipe. N x
Can you use wax paper if you don’t have parchment?
Hi Nagi! A great opportunity to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New year! Thank you so much for all your hard work and yummy recipes throughout the year. Much appreciated! 5 stars in advance because I know all your recipes that I’ve tried turn out perfect and delicious! Have a wonderful 2022, hugs to Dozer and looking forward to having your cookbook on my kitchen bench! Ho! Ho! Ho! 🎄🎅🏼
Thank you Sev! Happy holidays!! N x
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
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!
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.
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