Christmas Cookies! (Vanilla Biscuits/Sugar Cookies)

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

The nice thing about this recipe is that there’s no chill time required. Ain’t nobody got time for chilling during Christmas madness – right??!

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)

Author: Nagi

Prep: 25 mins

Cook: 10 mins

Sweet Baking

Western

4.96 from 24 votes

Servings40 cookies

Tap or hover to scale

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Recipe video above. These cookies are made for cutting out into shapes because they hold their shape when baking! They are plain, sweet vanilla biscuits that are perfect for icing and decorating as you please - and wonderful served plain too. NO CHILL!

Ingredients

• ▢ 225g / 1 cup unsalted butter , softened (or use salted, skip salt)
• ▢ 1 cup (220g) white sugar , preferably caster / superfine
• ▢ 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• ▢ 1 large egg (55-60g / 1.9-2oz)
• ▢ 3 cups (450g) flour , plain / all purpose
• ▢ 3/4 tsp baking powder
• ▢ 3/4 tsp salt

Icing for Sugar Cookies

• ▢ 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:

1. Number of cookies will depend on cut out size and how thick you roll your dough. It fills 3 baking trays.

2. Swapping trays halfway - this means that you put both trays in the oven with one in the middle of the oven and the other underneath. Halfway through the bake time, switch them around so the one underneath moves to the top shelf, and the tray on top moves to the shelf underneath. This ensures they both bake evenly because the top shelf bakes faster than the shelf underneath.

3. Source - adapted from this Sugar Cookies recipe by Sugar, Spun, Run. 

4. Storage - Keeps in an airtight container for a week. After this, they are still edible and totally delicious but they do start to dry out a touch (I think….I may be a bit too picky when I'm estimating shelf life of food for recipes I share!!). I would never describe them as stale, but they are better in Week 1.

Nutrition Information:

Calories: 96cal (5%)Carbohydrates: 12g (4%)Protein: 1g (2%)Fat: 5g (8%)Saturated Fat: 3g (19%)Cholesterol: 16mg (5%)Sodium: 46mg (2%)Potassium: 20mg (1%)Fiber: 1g (4%)Sugar: 5g (6%)Vitamin A: 147IU (3%)Calcium: 7mg (1%)Iron: 1mg (6%)

Keywords: christmas biscuits, christmas cookies, vanilla biscuits

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Life of Dozer

When Dozer got his very own personalised Christmas cookie!!