There is a drawer in my kitchen holding nine cookie cutters, and I have used four of them. Every November I buy another one. The Christmas cookies recipes below are the ones that survived that drawer, which is to say I have made them more than once and will make them again this year.
Here is what I think most people get backwards. The icing gets all the attention and the dough gets none, so you end up with something beautiful that tastes like sweetened cardboard. Chill the dough properly, roll it thicker than feels right, and pull the trays while the tops are still pale. A plain glazed cookie that tastes of butter beats a dry one in a full snowman outfit.
December also goes much easier if you split the work. Most of these doughs freeze raw for a month, so you can bake undecorated shapes now and ice them the week they are needed. Keep coarse sugar, dark molasses, white chocolate and a jar of sprinkles in the cupboard and a tin becomes a two hour job rather than a two day one.
Christmas Cookies Recipes That Earn Their Place In The Tin
These run roughly from easiest to most involved, so the first few need nothing more than a bowl and a baking sheet. The decorating projects sit further down, and they are worth the afternoon if you have one to give them.
1. Pastel Christmas Cut-Out Cookies With Royal Icing
Cut-out cookies live or die on spread. Leave out the baking powder, keep the butter barely softened, and chill the rolled sheets flat so every antler and stocking toe comes out of the oven with the edge you cut.
Check the pantry for:
- Butter, caster sugar, one egg, plain flour
- Vanilla, plus a drop of almond extract if you like that bakery note
- Icing sugar and meringue powder for the royal icing
Roll between two sheets of parchment to an even thickness, then cut. Uneven dough means some shapes bake through while others are still pale.
The icing does the rest. Keep it stiff for the outline, thin the rest with water until a ribbon of it sinks back in about fifteen seconds, then flood.
Undecorated cookies freeze for a month, so bake in November and decorate the week you need them.
2. Big Batch Gingerbread Shapes For Gifting
Molasses gingerbread is the dough to use when you are making forty of something. It holds a sharp edge better than sugar dough and it tastes better on day five, which sugar cookies do not.
- Make the dough a day ahead and chill it flat in a slab rather than a ball. Cold spiced dough rolls without cracking and the flavour settles overnight.
- Cut every shape before you bake anything, then freeze the cut trays for ten minutes. Ten minutes is the difference between a rocking horse and a blob with a mane.
- Ice by colour, not by cookie. Outline every horse across the whole tray, then flood every horse, then move on. You will halve the time and go through a fraction of the piping bags.
Ribbon bows go on last, once the icing has set hard, and whoever opens the box needs telling they are not edible.
3. Peppermint Shortbread With White Chocolate Glaze
The candy cane goes into the dough here, not just over the top, which is what stops these tasting like plain shortbread wearing a hat.
Shortbread is butter, sugar, flour and salt, no egg, so the crumb is short and sandy. Crush the peppermint fine before it goes in, because larger shards melt in the oven and leave hollows.
Dock the rounds with a fork so they bake flat rather than doming, and pull them while the edges have only just taken colour.
For the glaze, melt white chocolate and loosen it with a spoonful of cream, then spread it while still warm. The crushed cane needs to land within a minute or it will not stick.
No white chocolate: icing sugar, a splash of milk and a drop of peppermint extract does the same job for a quarter of the cost.
💡 Kitchen Tip
Crushed candy cane pulls moisture out of the air and goes tacky by the next day. If these are being made ahead, glaze and store them plain in a single layer, then scatter the peppermint on an hour before they go out.
4. Christmas M&M Cookies With Two Kinds Of Chips
Candy shells dull and crack if they spend too long in the oven, so fold half through the dough and press the rest onto the tops right before baking.
Why these stay thick and soft:
An extra egg yolk adds fat without more liquid, which is what gives you a chewy middle instead of a crisp wafer. Chilling the scooped balls for an hour firms the butter so they set before they can spread out flat.
White chips bring sweetness, dark chips bring the bitterness that keeps the whole thing from tasting like a candy bar. Using both is the point.
Pull them when the edges are set and the centres still look slightly underdone. They carry on cooking on the hot tray for another few minutes.
5. A Mixed Shape Christmas Cookie Tray
Nine different shapes look like chaos unless you hold the icing to three colours and repeat them across every cookie. Deep green, red and white will carry a whole tray.
Bake like with like. Small candy canes and mittens go on one tray, houses and big Santa faces on another, because a tray of mixed sizes will always give you burnt edges on the small ones.
Work the lettering cookies first while your hand is steady. Piping a cursive word at the end of a long session is how you lose four of them.
For boxing, decorated cookies need a full overnight at room temperature before they touch each other. Stack them warm and the icing will lift off onto whatever is above it.
6. Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies With Christmas Buttercream
Buttercream is the route for anyone who does not want to spend a Sunday learning icing consistency. Spread it thick with a small offset spatula, drag the colours together, and the rough finish is the look.
Keep the cookie itself soft and thick. Roll a little heavier than you would for a crisp cut-out and pull them while the tops are still pale, because a dry sugar cookie under sweet frosting is all sugar and no contrast.
Sprinkles go on within a minute or two, while the surface is still tacky.
| Buttercream | Royal icing |
|---|---|
| Spread with a spatula, no piping skill needed | Outline and flood, needs practice and bags |
| Stays soft, so cookies cannot be stacked | Sets hard, so cookies box and post well |
| Best eaten within two or three days | Keeps for a week or more in a tin |
| Tastes of butter and vanilla | Tastes mostly of sweetness, it is there for looks |
7. Thin Iced Cookie Boxes For Christmas Gifting
Cookie boxes need a thin crisp cookie, not a soft one. Roll these thinner than you think, because a thin cookie snaps, stacks on its side, and survives being carried across town.
Two doughs cover a whole box. A plain vanilla one that takes colour well, and a ginger one that gives you the darker row and a second flavour without a second shopping trip.
Skip the outline and flood entirely here. A simple glaze of icing sugar and a little milk, thick enough to sit on top, then dip the cookie face down and lift it straight up. Sprinkles land while it is still wet.
Let them set uncovered for several hours before packing, and slot them upright in rows rather than stacking flat. Standing on edge is what keeps the glaze off the cookie above.
8. Dark Chocolate Ganache Thumbprints
This is the one for adults, and the one to make when you are tired of sugar. Cocoa in the dough, dark chocolate in the well, nothing sweet enough to be described as festive.
- Press the well with your thumb before baking, then press it again the moment the trays come out. The dough puffs and the first well closes up, so the second press is the one that holds.
- Make the ganache while they cool. Equal parts dark chocolate and hot cream, left to sit for a minute before you stir, then stirred from the middle out until it goes glossy.
- Spoon it in while it is still loose enough to level itself, then leave the trays somewhere cool to set rather than the fridge, which dulls the finish.
The drizzle on top is the leftover ganache, warmed back up for a few seconds.
Make ahead: the baked shells keep in a tin for three days before filling.
9. Chocolate Dipped Chocolate Chip Cookies With Christmas Sprinkles
The fastest way to make an ordinary cookie look like a December cookie, and it works on a batch you baked last week.
Melt the chocolate gently and stir in a small spoonful of neutral oil. It thins the chocolate so the dip goes on evenly and it stops the coating shattering off when someone bites in.
Dip on the diagonal, let the excess run back into the bowl, then straight onto parchment and sprinkles on immediately. Chocolate sets fast and sprinkles do not stick to a set surface.
10. Sage Green And Gold Christmas Cookies
If the bright red tin has started to feel like a lot, this is the antidote: two soft colours, one metallic, and no character faces to get wrong.
What makes the palette work:
- Muted sage reads expensive next to plain white, where a true Christmas green would fight it
- The gold appears in tiny amounts only, a bauble top and a few dragees, so it stays a detail
- White on white is carried by texture instead of colour, which is why the piping has to be crisp
Mix edible gold lustre dust with a drop of clear alcohol and paint it on once the base icing is fully hard. Brushed onto soft icing it sinks in and turns muddy.
The raised lettering is a stamp pressed into the icing while it is still wet, then piped over. Get the timing wrong and it either smudges or refuses to hold the impression.
11. Hand Painted Character Christmas Cookies
This is a project, not a Tuesday night. Set aside a full afternoon and accept that the first two will be practice.
The trick with faces is doing almost nothing. A thin outline, two dots, a small blush, and stop. Every extra line makes the face look worse, not better.
Build in layers with full drying time between them. Red jacket first, left a few hours, then the white trim, then the black outline last with the finest tip you own.
If piping the outlines feels impossible, an edible ink pen on set icing gives you the same fine black line with none of the pressure.
12. Ginger Molasses Thumbprints With Eggnog Filling
Molasses does two jobs here. It keeps the crumb soft for days, and its slight bitterness stops the sweet white filling from taking over.
Roll the dough balls in coarse sugar before baking. Coarse crystals hold their shape in the heat and give the edge a crunch that fine sugar cannot.
The filling is white chocolate melted with a splash of cream, spiced with nutmeg and a little rum if you want it. It sets firm enough to stack once cool.
Grate the nutmeg over at the very end, when the filling is set but not yet hard.
Make ahead: the dough logs freeze for a month, so you can bake and fill a tray in under an hour whenever you need them.
Check the pantry for
Which Christmas Cookies Recipes Are You Baking First
Twelve is more than anyone needs, so pick two. One you can bake tonight in a single bowl, and one that gives you an afternoon with a piping bag and something good on the radio. That combination covers the school thing, the neighbour thing and the tin you are keeping for yourself.
Most of these doughs will sit happily in the freezer until you need them, which is the only real trick to a calm December.
Save this for the week when everyone suddenly needs cookies.
