More Sweet Things
Christmas Sugar Cookies
Christmas sugar cookies are a must in my kitchen every festive season. I use a simple, buttery dough that holds its shape when baked and stays soft in the centre with lightly crisp edges. They’re perfect for cutting into shapes, decorating with icing, or just enjoying plain with a cup of tea. Whether I’m baking for gifts, gatherings, or a quiet afternoon of decorating, these cookies always bring a little bit of magic to the season – and make the house smell like Christmas.
Ingredients
- 100g salted butter, soft
- 100g caster sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract, or vanilla bean paste
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 275g plain flour
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 190C, and line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Using an elextric mixer, beat together the soft butter and the caster sugar until pale and creamy.
- Add the egg and vanilla and beat through until well combined.
- Next, add the salt and flour and mix through until the mixture forms a dough.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface, and using a floured rolling pin, roll the dough into a thickness of 1cm.
- Use a cookie cutter, to cut out shapes from the dough. Transfer the shapes to the prepared baking tray.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, or until golden brown at the edges. Allow to cool for 5 minutes on the tray, before transferring the cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Decorate with frosting, sprinkles, and edible Christas confetti.
Notes
- The softer the butter, the faster the butter and sugar will cream together. You want to make sure you don't use butter straight from the fridge!
What I Cook With
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Nutrition Information:
Yield:
24Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 91Total Fat: 4gSaturated Fat: 2gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 17mgSodium: 54mgCarbohydrates: 13gFiber: 0gSugar: 4gProtein: 1g
Please note, this nutrition information is to be used as a guide only. Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
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Christmas Sugar Cookies
A Festive Start to the Season
Tomorrow is the first official day of meteorological winter, but let’s be honest, in my home we’ve been in Christmas mode for at least a week. The tree’s up, fairy lights twinkling, and I’ve already started my festive baking marathon. These Christmas Sugar Cookies were first off the mark this year. They’re buttery, crisp, and ridiculously easy to whip up. Honestly, if you’ve got a spare hour and some sprinkles, you’re halfway there.
This recipe is my go-to when I want something festive without the faff. It’s ideal if you’ve got kids (or let’s be real, grown adults) who want to get involved. I’ve made these with (not so little) little helpers in the past and they’ve had a ball decorating them with all the toppings you can imagine. I tend to use a vanilla frosting from Tesco because it saves time and tastes great, and I’ve got a bit of a thing for the festive sprinkles they bring out each year. Gold stars, white snowmen, tiny red hearts… what’s not to love?
Let me tell you though, the joy of these cookies is in their simplicity. A stand mixer does most of the heavy lifting, which is a blessing because creaming butter and sugar by hand feels like a workout I didn’t sign up for. That said, the butter needs to be properly soft or your mixer will just slap it around the bowl doing absolutely nothing. In Scotland, even in winter, room temperature butter can be a bit… solid. I’ve had to use a few softening hacks now and then, especially when the kitchen is colder than the fridge.
Butter-Softening Tricks I Swear By
If you’re in a cold kitchen and your butter feels like a block of marble, don’t panic – I’ve been there more times than I can count. One of my favourite tricks is grating the butter with a cheese grater – it sounds mad, but it works. Grated butter softens in no time and makes mixing a dream. Another method I use is cutting the butter into cubes and letting it sit near the oven while it preheats. The ambient warmth helps without accidentally melting it.
Microwaving is always tempting, but you’ve got to tread carefully. I do the old ten-seconds-at-a-time trick, flipping the butter each time to avoid hot spots. You want soft and squishable, not liquid. Liquid butter will ruin the texture of your dough and your cookies will spread like they’ve got no ambition in life. Don’t ask me how I know that!!
If you’re really organised, you can just leave the butter out overnight. I never remember to do that. Ever. Because I live in Scotland, and that will guarentee a frozen block of butter. But in the spirit of Christmas and chaos, the grater or cubing trick will do you proud.
Decorating Tips Without the Stress
I’m not one for piping bags and perfectly symmetrical icing. I like my cookies to look handmade and full of joy. So when it comes to decorating these Christmas Sugar Cookies, I go for easy and cheerful. That Tesco vanilla frosting I mentioned? Straight from the tub, spread with the back of a spoon. Easy peasy.
And the sprinkles? That’s where the real fun happens. I stockpile festive sprinkles every year. It’s a bit of a problem, to be honest! I’ve got jars of gold stars, red sugar crystals, tiny snowflakes, gingerbread men, and even edible glitter. Decorating turns into a free-for-all, and that’s exactly how I like it. My cookies don’t need to be perfect – they just need to be delicious and covered in edible sparkles.
These are also the perfect cookies for gifting. I pop a few into a cellophane bag, tie it with some ribbon, and hand them out to neighbours or bring them along to work. People think you’ve gone to so much effort, and you don’t have to tell them it was the easiest bake of the season. It can be our little secret.
Ingredients Breakdown
These Christmas Sugar Cookies use everyday pantry staples, which makes them even more appealing. The base of the dough is plain flour, softened butter, and sugar. I use salted butter because I love the balance it gives to the sweetness, but if you’re using unsalted, just add a little pinch of salt to the mix. Vanilla extract gives that classic sugar cookie flavour, and an egg helps bind it all together.
You don’t need any fancy equipment here – the dough rolls out easily and holds its shape when baked, so you can use whatever festive cookie cutters you have on hand. For decorating, I usually grab a tub of Tesco vanilla frosting and whatever Christmas-themed sprinkles I’ve hoarded. And that’s it. No faff, no fuss. Just good old-fashioned buttery biscuits that taste like holiday joy.
If you’re only going to bake one thing this Christmas, make it these. They’re simple, festive, and guaranteed to bring a bit of sparkle to your kitchen. And if you end up with frosting in your hair or sprinkles on the cat? Well, welcome to my December.
