Christmas Cutout Cookies
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What happens when you take sweet sugar cookies, cut the dough using Christmas cookie cutters, and add red and green icing? You get Christmas cutout cookies, a must-make cookie recipe these holidays.
Throughout my childhood, this was our one must-have sugar cookie recipe for cookie decorating. Mama would make a huge batch so we all had plenty to decorate. She cut them into shapes of trees, stars, and reindeer and each of us got our own platter full. She mixed up red, green, and yellow icing and always had plenty of sprinkles to go on top. They will be “wet” right after icing and decorating but if you wait an hour or so they will dry enough to be stacked in a cookie jar.
Our Christmas cutout cookies start with a simple sugar cookie recipe. I bet you already have most of the ingredients at home right now: milk, shortening, baking powder, vanilla extract, salt, sugar, flour, and eggs. We just need to combine the wet ingredients, combine the dry ingredients in a separate mixing bowl, and then mix them both together. Once the dough has chilled for at least an hour, it’s time to roll it out and put our Christmas cookie cutters to the test!
The sugar cookies bake for less than 10 minutes. Then we have to wait just a little bit longer before we get to the fun part: Christmas decorations! Make as many different icing flavors as you like, go wild on the Christmas sprinkles, and most importantly, have fun decorating your Christmas cutout cookies.
My best holiday memories as a child were decorating these cookies and all of the other little arts and crafts that Mama did with us to help make the house festive. It seemed we were always busy, up to something and having a wonderful time together. So I hope you make a new holiday tradition in your house with these Christmas cutout cookies. Santa will love them.
If you want to make some other delicious Christmas desserts check out some of my other recipes like Bon Bons With Coconut, Homemade Fudge With Variations, Snowman Oreo Balls, Cream Cheese Mints, and Spritz Cookies.
What You’ll Need to Make Christmas Cut Out Cookies:
- Milk
- Vegetable shortening
- Baking powder
- Vanilla extract
- Salt
- Granulated sugar
- All-purpose flour
- Eggs
Helpful Kitchen Tools
How to Make Christmas Cutout Cookies
Prep the cookie dough
Combine sugar, shortening, milk, and vanilla in a mixing bowl.
Cream together. Add eggs and mix well.
The cookie dough will look like this.
In a separate bowl, add flour, baking powder and salt.
Whisk those dry ingredients together until combined.
Add the dry ingredients to your wet ingredients, and mix until well-combined.
Divide…
and refrigerate the dough for at least one hour. I just put mine in sandwich bags.
**If you are in a hurry, pop it in the freezer for about 15 minutes and it will be just fine.
Making the Cutout Cookies
Whenever I make cutout cookies, I like to line my countertop with waxed paper or parchment paper for less mess.
Dust the waxed paper-lined countertop with flour.
Place a portion of your chilled dough on the floured surface.
Dust the top with flour again.
With a little bit of flour in your hand, run it over your rolling pin to keep it from sticking to the dough.
Roll the dough out to about 1/8 of an inch (I prefer mine to be about 1/4 of an inch – I’m such a rebel). Prepare a baking sheet by spraying with cooking spray.
Now it’s time to cut out the Christmas cookies.
Be careful not to tear them when you pick them up.
I use this really thin cookie spatula I have.
Place on the greased cookie sheet.
The dough scraps can be balled up together and rolled out again. I usually only do this once and after the second cutting I throw that dough away. If you keep balling it up and rolling it out, it will get “piece-y” and you’ll start having layered cookies. Just try it a few times and you’ll see what I mean!
Bake for 6-8 minutes.
They will still look a lot like they did when they were uncooked, but puffed up slightly and if you look you’ll see just a hint of browning around the bottom.
Decorating the Christmas cut out cookies
This is only a teeny tiny portion of my sprinkles and sugars collection. I have an entire storage bin of them! Gather together some Christmas sprinkles and colored sugar for decorating.
Place margarine or butter (well-softened) in a bowls (if you want three different colors of icing). Add powdered sugar, milk, and flavoring. Cut that together with a fork. You are really just mooshing it.
Keep mixing until it’s smooth and creamy.
Feel free to add another tablespoon of milk if you need to.
Separate into bowls and dye each bowl with the gel food coloring of your choice and stir until the colors are even.
It should look like these!
From there, I lay out a sheet of waxed paper for each person and put cookies on top of it. Then I give everyone spoons so they have one for each icing color.
Just drizzle your icing on the cookie with a spoon, spread it around, and add sprinkles!
I let my kids pretty much do whatever they want with their cookies. This isn’t a time to produce a “perfectly” decorated cookie, it’s a time to let kids do it their way and be proud of their creations. They LOVE this part!
Kinda like this. Allow cookies to sit out for an hour or two until they are completely dried.
Then you can store them in a cookie jar or other airtight bin, stacked on top of each other.
Arrange on a plate and enjoy your Christmas sugar cookies!
Storage
- Store decorated cookies in an airtight container for up to 5 days at room temperature or up to 10 days in the refrigerator.
- These Christmas cutout sugar cookies also freeze so well (with or without decorations). Once they’re set, freeze them for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature or in the fridge before serving.
Recipe Notes
- Please note that this is a double batch. One recipe will yield about two dozen average-sized cookies. I tend to make mine a bit larger though.
- Now, you need to chill the cookie dough for at least an hour. However, feel free to make it in advance and refrigerate the dough for at least 2 days.
- I also strongly recommend doing as I do and dividing the dough before refrigerating. It will make it so much easier to roll out.
- Instead of a spoon, another great way to distribute the cookie icing is to use a piping bag, a zipper seal bag with the corner snipped off, or a squeeze bottle.
- For a little extra sugar cookie flavor, add 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract.
- Yes, you can use softened unsalted butter instead of shortening in the sugar cookie recipe.
- Instead of sugar cookie icing, you can use royal icing instead.
- If you don’t have Christmas cookie cutters, you can just use the top of a glass to make circular sugar cookies.
Check out these other Christmas cookie recipes:
14 Favorite Christmas Cookie Recipes
Southern Plate’s Must-Make Christmas Cookies
Chewy Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies
Candy Cane Cookies (Elf Favorite)
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup shortening
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 4 teaspoons milk
- 2 cups plain flour
- 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Icing
- 1 cup confectioner's sugar
- 1 tablespoon softened butter or margarine
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla or butter flavoring
Instructions
- Thoroughly cream together shortening, sugar, and vanilla. Add egg and beat until fluffy then stir in the milk.2/3 cup shortening, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 egg, 4 teaspoons milk
- Sift the remaining dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, stir, then add to the wet ingredients, and mix well.2 cups plain flour, 1.5 teaspoons baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt
- Divide dough in half and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- On a floured surface, roll half of the dough to 1/8-inch thick. Keep the remaining dough chilled until ready to roll. Cut into shapes using Christmas cookie cutters.
- Bake on a greased cookie sheet at 375 for 6-8 minutes.
- Let cookies cool slightly before removing them from the baking sheet. Once cool, go ahead and decorate them with the cookie icing.
Icing
- In a bowl, mix all ingredients together with a fork (if using three different colors, repeat the process with three different bowls). If too dry, add a little more milk. Once mixed, add a few drops of food coloring.1 cup confectioner's sugar, 1 tablespoon softened butter or margarine, 2 tablespoons milk, 1 teaspoon vanilla or butter flavoring
- Ice the cooled cookies and then let them set for at least an hour before storing.
Nutrition
Ok, so we weren’t rich by any means, but we had everything we ever needed… my first Christmas bike was a used 10-speed… lots of hand me down bike years in between there.
I awoke (along with 3 older sibling brothers) to a beautiful Christmas tree… BUT with NO PRESENTS under it. What? Santa got lost? Santa not real? Nothing, except the untouched cookies.
About lunch time (we called it dinner) was the usual affair of ham, mac’n cheese, brown rice, gravy, green bean casserole and such. At least I was smart enough to stuff myself.
About 2pm on Christmas Day, Mom and Dad gave up on Santa. “He’s not coming!” Dad loaded all us boys up for a trip to the new house they were building to finish up the living room subflooring (free labor mind you).
Low and behold in the middle of the living room to be, was yet another beautifully decorated Christmas tree with piles upon piles of Christmas gifts…. oh yeah, and a used 10 speed.
MERRY CHRISTMAS to all.
Making lots of candy and cookies and then driving to south Missouri where my Granny and Grandpa lived… in a house with a pot bellied wood stove in one room for heat and no running water… but did I care? nope not one bit… and all my cousins would be there…
I think I have to make these cookies this week!!!
hugs jo from Sapulpa Oklahoma
You just made me crave cookies so bad. Guess what the wonder twins and I will be doing tomorrow? 🙂
These look great Christy! I love cut out cookies. They are definitely a holiday tradition in my house. I found that when rolling them out I like to use powdered sugar instead of flour. It makes them just a little bit sweeter, but also lighter. I love your idea for decorating them. Definitely going to give that a try this year! Thanks for all the fun recipes you provide!
Oh, Michelle….that is BRILLIANT! thx for the tip of powdered sugar.
Merry Christmas.
Hi, if you want to cut the sweetness a bit we used to put evaporated milk in little bowls and add food coloring to them. Then take a paint brush and paint the cookies before baking them. They come out all decorated without the added sugar.
I have GOT to try that!
oh my goodness my grandma and I would make these every Christmas the entire kitchen would be covered in cookies, we made batches for the church, Santa, neighbors, and all my cousins and I would be icing them. like a little Christmas sweat shop! one of my favorite memories!
“and I would be icing them like a little Christmas sweat shop! “
LOL! I love it!!!!
I am sooo putting that quote on the southernplate facebook page when I get home! Love it!! Lol
Christy, I have a question…
first, you have inspired me… I have never made cut out cookies because they scare me. I had no idea how to get them from the table to the pan (although I did see once where you put the dough on the cookie sheet, and leave the cookies in place but move the dough!)
Can the shortening be margarine or butter… does it have to be “crisco”….
ty ty ty! with 5 kids out of school from 12-18 thru 1-4, I need all the ideas i can get!
Hey! I’m out with the kids but wantedto answer this real quick on my phone. Margarine should work as a sub but definitely stay away from butter, not the same thing. Whereas marg and shortening are similar enough to work.
Hope this helps!!
Gratefully
Christy 🙂
We were successful with using butter when we made these. I’m sure there is some difference, but we were in love. 🙂
At my childhood home in Atlanta, our family of 4 gathered around the Christmas tree on Christmas eve, a live cedar tree, oh did it smell WONDERFUL. We read the Christmas story from the bible and put out our special plates with M&M cookies and Coca-Cola….of course. I remember how exciting & magical that time was.
I sooo hope my son and daughter will look back on our tradition of homemade cookies for Santa too. One year, my 9 yr old son was SCREAMING to see that there was even an ash boot print on the hearth. Always carrots for the reindeer, and the next morning there were leftover gnawed carrot pieces on the roof top and on the front sidewalk. ;}
Merry Christmas ya’ll.