Easy Christmas Cookies

This Christmas Cookies recipe is delicious and such fun. Make them yourself or with your children for festive fabulousness. I usually make half the batch myself and then leave the other for my children to cut out and decorate with as much Christmas bling as they can shake a candy cane at.

Christmas Tree Cookies

I have fallen completely in love with these cuties and I’m not the only one.  These Christmas Cookies have gone down an absolute storm.

They are from the same shortbread recipe as my Easy Shortbread Cookies and they are seriously good. Crisp, buttery and short they are divine and horribly moreish.

I obviously colour them green here and cut them out into christmas tree shapes before baking them and finally decorating in a classic tinsel and baubles vibe. It really is an easy recipe and you can ramp up the technical level of decorating to suit how clever or useless you are.

I am particularly ham fisted so have kept it simple here even using pre made shop bought writing icing for the tinsel and picking out the red balls from a christmas sprinkles set. No fancy pants decorating here. I really am crap.

But first…….

Damn that Elf. Who else is drowning in a sea of Elf pain. Who else would cheerfully ram the damn thing down the toilet?

It requires research, organization and the skills of a silent assassin. However I am the Johnny English of silent assassins. So many, too many close calls.

Plus my children have taken to writing him damn letters. Taking it in turns each flipping night. In fact the tricks have become almost secondary to his close family background and the name of his bestest friend ever.

At first slightly charming this has now become the biggest Christmas pain in the posterior. I can’t be bothered to string a sentence together past 8 o clock never mind engage in sprightly and magical Elf language. The trouble is that it’s far too late in the Christmas day to call the whole thing off.

Last year my daughter found him stuffed in a desk and burst into tears convinced that Christmas was ALL a lie. Obviously feeling like the most worst and most useless parent ever I managed to convince her that he was merely hibernating…….

Last night she came downstairs to look for something after bed time and discovered my reply to the previous evenings letter already drafted at 8 pm…..distraught again somehow I managed to talk down another Christmas catastrophe and collapsed exhausted onto the sofa feeling like I had just survived an hour with MI5.

I feel like I’m having a Christmas affair. Damn that Elf. Bring on the Christmas Cookies.

Christmas Cookies Recipe

STEP 1 – Mixing the Christmas Cookies dough.

The ingredients are incredibly simple. Just flour, sugar, butter and green food gel. Mix the lot together and it really is as simple as that. I usually use my free standing mixer but a large food processor works well too.

Shortbread Ingredients

Whack the lot in there and keep mixing until the dough starts to clump together. Keep going for about 10 seconds after that. After mixing it becomes a green dough. Add more green gel to achieve the right colour. I do recommend the gel colouring. it is much more powerful.

STEP 2 -Rolling and cutting out the dough. 

I use a bit of icing sugar on the work surface to stop the dough sticking when I roll it out. I roll it out to about 0.75 cm thickness all over. I then cut out the christmas tree shapes.

I put them on a lined flat baking sheet. I use a reusable silicon liner. I chill in the fridge for half an hour.

These make about 30 cookies. I sometimes make half of the batch and freeze the other if I feel that I would struggle to munch my way through so many. Or of course you could just halve the ingredients.

STEP 3 – Baking the cookies.

Have the oven preheated to 190 C/375 F/Gas Mark 5 and bake thhe cookies for about 10/12 minutes. You are looking for crisp edges and a small amount of colouring. Too much and the trees lose their green colour and not enough and the cookies will be too soft.

Move to a wire rack after 5 minutes to completely cool.

STEP 5 – Decorating the Christmas Cookies

I used shop bought pre mixed writing icing from my supermarket. The kind that you can just squeeze straight from the packet. They come with little screw on plastic nozzles. Make sure they are warm enough, room temperature at least, and they pipe so easily with no mess or clouds of icing sugar.

I pipe on tinsel and then gently press in red baubles and a little star on the top. I use christmas sprinkles for this again bought from my local supermarket.

Let the kids fill their christmas decorating boots.

Christmas Cookie Tips

• To make the cookies gluten free simply substitute the plain flour for gluten free . Ensure your sprinkles and icing  are gluten free too.
• Freeze the cookies cut out but raw. I freeze them for an hour singularly before placing them in a freezer bag for up to 3 months. Bake from frozen for an extra 5 minutes or so. A great idea to get ahead.
• Don’t let the butter be too warm when mixing otherwise the dough will lose it’s shape when baked. You don’t want the butter to be too soft.
• Make sure the edges are slightly crisp to get the perfect texture for your cookie.
• If the cookies spread a little then use a knife to carefully sharpen up the edges.
• If you want to make your own icing see here.
• Store in a airtight container for up to 5 days.

5 from 7 votes

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Easy Christmas Cookies

This very simple recipe for Christmas Cookies is delicious as well as lots of fun. Great for getting the kids involved and perfect for Christmas Fairs.

Course Biscuits, Cookies

Cuisine English

Keyword Christmas Biscuits, Christmas Cookies, easy shortbread cookies

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 12 minutes

Decorating Time 15 minutes

Total Time 37 minutes

Servings 30

Calories 138 kcal

Author Apply To Face Blog

Ingredients

• 250 grams unsalted butter room temperature
• 150 grams caster sugar
• 350 grams plain flour
• 1 tsp green gel food colour may be less or more

Icing

• 280 grams white icing I use 2 x 140 grams Dr.Oetker packets
• christmas sprinkles

Metric - U S Customary

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5. Place all the shortbread ingredients into the mixer or food processor and mix until the dough starts to clump together. Carry on for another 10 seconds and turn out onto a work surface.

2. Using your hands knead the dough to bring together unto a smooth dough. Dust the work surface with icing sugar as well as the rolling pin and roll out the dough into a roughly shaped rectangle about 0.75 cm thickness.

3. Use your christmas tree cut out to press out your shapes and place onto a lined large flat baking tray. You will need two of these or cut out 15 at a time and place the other half of the dough covered back in the fridge. This dough will keep for a week covered in the fridge.

4. Chill for 30 minutes before baking for 10/12 minutes. You are wanting crisp edges and some slight darkening. It is important to bake them enough to have some crispness to them.

5. Leave them on the baking tray for a few minutes before carefully moving to a wire rack to fully cool.

6. To ice them pipe around the tree leaving out the bottom square. Then pipe across the middle of the tree in a zig zag fashion. Press the baubles into the icing and put a star on the very top. See photos.

7. Apply to Deceitful Face

Nutrition Facts

Easy Christmas Cookies

Amount Per Serving

Calories 138 Calories from Fat 63

% Daily Value*

Fat 7g11%

Saturated Fat 5g31%

Cholesterol 18mg6%

Sodium 1mg0%

Potassium 14mg0%

Carbohydrates 14g5%

Fiber 1g4%

Sugar 9g10%

Protein 1g2%

Vitamin A 208IU4%

Calcium 4mg0%

Iron 1mg6%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

Here is another fabulously easy Christmas recipe.

Easy Christmas Cake

I have linked this post with Cook, Blog, Share and Fiesta Friday with Angie and   Liz @ Spades, Spatulas & Spoons