Easy Christmas Sugar Cookies
These Christmas sugar cookies are made with a simple sugar cookie dough and topped with a simple and easy glaze. If making sugar cookies and decorating them intimidates you, you will love this foolproof recipe!
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups Flour
- ½ cup Cornstarch
- 230 g Butter
- 1 cup Powder sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon Salt
For the icing:
- 1 cup Powder sugar
- 1 tablespoon Milk
- 2 teaspoon Corn syrup
- ⅓ teaspoon Almond extract
- Gel food coloring
Instructions
- In a big mixing bowl, add the flour, cornstarch, and kosher salt. Mix with a whisk until combined and set aside.
- Into a big mixing bowl, or in a bowl of a stand mixer, add the room temperature butter and the powder sugar, and cream it for 2-3 minutes or until it’s creamy and light in color.
- Add the eggs, and vanilla extract. Cream the butter until the mixture is creamy and light.
- Add half of the dry ingredients and mix until almost combined. Add the other half of the dry ingredients. Mix until the mixture is just combined and you cant see pockets of flour.
- Cover the Christmas sugar cookies dough with plastic wrap and let the dough rest in the fridge for at least an hour. We let the dough rest in the fridge overnight but it’s not a must.
- After letting the dough chill in the fridge for at least an hour, take one dough half out of the fridge. Start rolling the dough on a floured clean surface to about ¼ inch thick.
- Using cookie cutters, cut as many cookies as you can, we use a Christmas tree one, heart shape, star, and a circle but you can use your favorite cookie cutters as well. Carefully transfer the cookies onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and bake in a 180c (350f) preheated oven for 10 minutes or until the edges are starting to turn golden.
- Take the cookies out of the oven and let them cool for 10 minutes. Then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
How to make easy icing for cookies:
- In a medium mixing bowl, sift the powder sugar, add the almond extract, milk, and corn syrup. We suggest adding the milk gradually until you get the consistency you are looking for.
- Mix the ingredients with a whisk until super smooth. You can take your time mixing the icing until it’s smooth and silky.
- If you are using food coloring, this is the time to color the icing. We used gel food coloring and we highly recommend doing so as well.
- Divide the icing into small bowls and color each bowl with a drop of food coloring. Gel food coloring comes a long way so you should start with a small drop and build it up as you go.
- Decorate your cookies (as seen in the video or as you would like) and add sprinkles on top if desired. We used Christmas sprinkles on the Christmas tree (with green icing) and coarse sugar on the star and round cookies (with white icing), and coarse sugar on the heart-shaped cookies (with red icing).
- Set your cookies aside and let them dry completely for at least a few hours, we let them dry overnight. Our favorite part about this icing is that when it dried, it’s not too hard on your teeth and it tastes really good!
Notes
Use room temperature ingredients. It is important that you use room-temperature ingredients like eggs and butter. This step ensures that your mixture mixes into a homogenous mixture and bakes perfectly.
Don’t overmix the batter, you don’t want to develop the gluten in the flour. This step ensures you have moist and tender cookies and not dense and dry cookies.
Make sure that your butter is at room temperature. An hour or two before making these cookies, take the butter out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. The butter should be soft to the touch. If your butter is too cold, it will be harder to mix and there will be lumps of butter in the dough.
Make sure that you are using fresh ingredients! One of the most common mistakes in baking and making cookies is not noticing that your baking powder or baking soda is expired. This can ruin your cookies and waste your time and money on the ingredients. So every time you bake anything, make sure that the ingredients are not expired.
This sugar cookies dough can be made in advance! So you can make this dough ahead of time and either freeze it in an airtight freezer-friendly container or store it in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 5 days!
Measure your flour correctly! When measuring your flour, avoid scooping it with a measuring cup. Instead, stir the flour with a spoon to create as many air pockets as possible, and spoon it into your measuring cup. Finally, level it with a back of a knife.
Line your sheet pan with parchment paper or a silicone mat! This step helps the cookies to bake evenly, and it makes sure that your cookies release easily from the pan.
Before you start to make this recipe, measure and prepare your ingredients so the cooking process will go smoothly and easily.
Chill the dough! This step is crucial and prevents the cookies to spread out too much. After making the cookie dough, cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a clean towel, and chill the dough in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
Be patient! I know it’s extremely tempting to ice these cookies as they are pulled out of the oven, but let these cookies cool for at least 1 hour in the fridge so the icing won’t melt.
If your dough is starting to get soft, cover it with plastic wrap and freeze it for 15 minutes to let it firm up. We repeat this step until we are out of dough and we baked all the cookies.
Nutrition
Calories: 81kcalCarbohydrates: 14gProtein: 1gFat: 5gSaturated Fat: 3gPolyunsaturated Fat: 0.3gMonounsaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0.2gCholesterol: 21mgSodium: 70mgPotassium: 14mgFiber: 0.2gSugar: 0.5gVitamin A: 156IUCalcium: 4mgIron: 0.4mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!