Let’s be honest – December is chaotic enough without a cookie recipe that requires 3 hours of chilling, a candy thermometer, and a degree in architecture.
If your dream Christmas cookie is delicious, festive, and actually easy enough to make while watching a Hallmark movie with a glass of wine in hand, you’re in the right place.
Ready to make your kitchen smell amazing? Let’s get baking!
How These Recipes Save You Work
These cookies are all from scratch, and each recipe lets you skip something different: the mixer, the fridge, the cutters, a stack of separate doughs for a gift box, or the worry of a bad batch. Each recipe below has the full ingredient list and the video so you can shop and start.
Pecan Snowball Cookies
Pecan Snowball Cookies are the round butter and pecan balls rolled in powdered sugar you see in Christmas tins, also called Russian teacakes or butter balls. Six ingredients, one bowl, no mixer. That is why I keep them on this list, and I have made them year after year.
The dough is stirred by hand and shaped into balls, and the powdered sugar goes on after baking, so the only real chore is chopping the toasted pecans fine. Don’t skip the toasting, which just means heating the nuts until they smell good. It makes a real difference to the flavor. Walnuts work if you are out of pecans, and some people like them better.
One batch tends to lead to another, and I have done four in a season. The cookies are a bit messy to eat because of the sugar, and that is my one complaint. A little edible glitter on the sugar dresses them up. Almond flour in place of regular flour worked once for a friend.
Ingredients
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (4 ounces/113 grams) butter, softened
- 1 cup finely chopped toasted pecans
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup powdered sugar for rolling
SaveNo-Chill Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
No-Chill Cut-Out Sugar Cookies are plain buttery cut-outs finished with royal icing, which is icing that dries hard. I picked them because the dough needs no chilling. You can roll and cut shapes right away, they hold their shape in the oven, and skipping the fridge is my favorite part. A batch makes around 40 cookies. People who have failed at sugar cookies before have had good luck with this recipe, and a 9 year old was thrilled with how the cookies turned out.
The catch is you still have to roll and cut, and the icing is where the work comes in, so plain cookies without icing are fine when you are short on time. The dough also takes spice well: a mix of nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon and ginger makes a warm spiced cookie. You can make them gluten free or dairy free, and the link below goes over the swaps.
Watch the powdered sugar line in the list below. It says 2 lbs (480g) powdered sugar, and those two numbers do not match, since 2 lbs is about 907g. Open the link and check the amount before you buy sugar.
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter or vegan butter (227g), softened at room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar (201g)
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp baking powder (8g)
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (384g)
- Royal icing: 2 lbs (480g) powdered sugar, sifted
- Royal icing: 3 tbsp meringue powder
- Royal icing: 1/2 cup water
- Royal icing: food coloring, optional
SavePiped Christmas Tree Cookies
Piped Christmas Tree Cookies are soft green butter cookies piped into little trees and dotted with sprinkles if you like. I love them because you make the dough in one bowl with no mixer, and piping the shapes means you need no cutters. They are close to old spritz cookies without needing a cookie press. A piping bag is just a cone you squeeze dough through to make shapes.
This dough does need time in the fridge before baking. The trees can also flatten. Mine did once, and next time I would chill the dough in the bag and again before baking. A cheap bag can burst too. When that happened I rolled the dough out, cut circles with a glass, and still got good cookies.
The same dough pipes into wreaths, and I have made both on the same tray. I have also doubled it for a cookie exchange with a little milk added.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (113g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup (65g) powdered sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg white, at room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups (150g) flour
- A pinch of salt
- Green food coloring, as needed
- 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
- Small colorful sprinkles, optional, for decoration
SaveOne-Dough Christmas Cookie Box
The one-dough Christmas cookie box is one big batch of butter dough that bakes up crisp and melt-away and turns into a whole box of different cookies. One dough makes five kinds of cookies, which is why I chose it: you can fill a gift tin without making five separate doughs. You split the dough into equal portions and give each its own add-ins for piped vanilla butter cookies, Linzer cookies (two cookies with jam between), gingerbread style, sugar and chocolate.
This cookie box is the biggest project on the page, and that is the catch. It uses a lot of butter and flour, five sets of add-ins, and time in the fridge, so it is easy because it saves work across a whole box, but it is not quick.
The first time, I made just the vanilla butter and Linzer cookies and left the rest of the dough in the fridge for the next day. The dough is easy to work with even if you don’t bake much. I have given the box as a Christmas gift and been asked to make it again for Easter, and when I made two batches, none lasted to the next day. For stronger gingerbread flavor, swap the cocoa for a tablespoon of molasses and add a little cloves. Orange peel or lime zest also change up the flavor.
Ingredients
- 750 g soft room temperature butter (6 2/3 sticks)
- 300 g powdered sugar (2 1/2 cups)
- 3 room temperature extra large egg whites
- 900 g all purpose flour (6 cups + 1/2 cup)
- 3 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp salt
- Linzer cookies, added to one portion: 60 g almond flour (1/2 cup), 40 g all purpose flour (4 tbsp), 1/2 tsp almond extract, jam of your choice
- Gingerbread style cookies, added to one portion: 2 3/4 tsp ginger, 3 tsp cinnamon, 2 or 3 tsp cocoa powder, 40 g flour (4 tbsp)
- Sugar cookies, added to one portion: 50 g all purpose flour (5 tbsp), 1/2 tsp vanilla
- Chocolate sugar cookies, added to one portion: 60 g sweetened cocoa powder (7 1/2 tbsp) bloomed in 5 tbsp hot milk, 20 g all purpose flour (2 tbsp), melted good quality chocolate to fill
SaveEasy Iced Gingerbread Cookies
Easy Iced Gingerbread Cookies are classic rolled gingerbread with ginger, cinnamon, cloves and molasses, finished with a simple icing and sprinkles. I keep this one because it is the simple gingerbread that comes out well even if you are no great baker. I am not, and I get good cookies every time and get asked for them every year. Someone making these for the first time baked a batch for a first grader, and it came out delicious too.
The catch: this gingerbread is the most classic baking on the page, with an electric mixer, a rolling pin and cutters. A night in the fridge makes the dough easier to work with. The icing is just powdered sugar, milk and vanilla, simple enough for kids to do, and decorating together is the fun part.
Ingredients
- 2 1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature (12 tbsp)
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- Icing: 2 cups powdered sugar
- Icing: 2-3 tbsp milk
- Icing: 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- Sprinkles, to decorate
SaveQuestions Before You Bake
Here is what I tell friends who ask.
How Far Ahead Can I Bake Them?
Bake your cookies a day or two ahead if you can. As a general rule, baked cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to about a week. Cookies with icing that has dried hard travel well, so they are good for tins. Plain cookies without icing freeze well with parchment between layers. Thaw them at room temperature, then ice and decorate.
Why Did My Cookies Lose Their Shape?
There is no one reason cookies lose their shape. Warm dough is the first thing I check, and piped dough needs a good chill in the bag and again after shaping. Then I look at the flour: weigh it, or spoon it into the cup and level it. Even chilled cut-outs can still spread, so if one tray goes flat, chill the rest longer.
What If the Dough Is Too Sticky?
Flour your surface, your pin and your hands. For gingerbread, a night in the fridge helps, though a long chill does not fix every dough. If cut shapes still stick, roll between two sheets of parchment and freeze the cut shapes so you can lift them onto the baking sheet.
Do I Need a Mixer or Tools?
You don’t need a mixer or tools for every cookie here. The snowballs and the piped trees come together in one bowl with a spoon, so you need no mixer. You will want an electric mixer for the gingerbread. If you have no cutters, a glass cuts circles.
Pick the hassle you most want to skip and start there. I keep the snowballs for a quiet afternoon and the cut-outs or gingerbread for when the kids want to decorate, and the tin empties faster than I plan.
