While I could eat chocolate chip cookies every day and never tire of them, I always look forward to making these Easy Holiday Sugar Cookies. The creativity in choosing fun cookie-cutter shapes makes them extra special.
This year I opted to make several shapes: Christmas Trees, Christmas Lights, Snowflakes, and Gingerbread Men. I have other cookie-cutters to use but ultimately select between 4-5 shapes when I make them so I don't end up needing too many icing color variations.
When we were young we always looked forward to making these cookies for the pure fact that you could add your own designs and get creative with the icing. These cookies really allow you to get into the Holiday spirit and add such a fun touch to a platter of cookies for sharing. They take some time so be sure to allow yourself a day to bake the cookies, let them cool completely, decorate, and a couple hours for the icing to dry.
Although these cookies are considered Sugar Cookie dough, they have a decent amount of butter which adds to the flavor profile. Rather than being super sweet and only tasting sugar you really get a delicious cookie whether you ice these or not. The icing I used is a royal icing recipe, which is very sweet as is, so you could opt to leave out a little bit of sugar in the recipe if you prefer a less sweet cookie.
I also seem to pick cookie-cutter shapes where i can outline certain areas with icing while leaving some of the cookie bare. It's a matter of choice and preference, but I like getting a bite of buttery sugar cookie every so often without the sugary royal icing on top. But if icing is your thing, feel free to flood your entire cookie design with icing.
Ingredients
Classic sugar cookie ingredients like butter and sugar create a soft, buttery base, while royal icing adds the perfect touch for decorating.
- Butter
- Sugar
- Flour
- Baking Powder
See recipe card for quantities.
Storage
Be sure to allow plenty time for your icing to dry or you risk the icing cracking or breaking off of the cookies when you go to store them. You can keep iced sugar cookies fresh for up to 2 weeks at room temperature if they’re stored in an airtight container. Use parchment paper between the layers to keep them from sticking.
Shop The Realest
Pairing
These cookies were meant to be iced with this royal icing recipe for flawless results!
📖 Recipe
Easy Holiday Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
- 2 cups unsalted butter at room temp.
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 3 teaspoon vanilla
- 5 cups AP flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
Sugar Cookies
- Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together. Put to the side.
- Using a paddle attachment cream together butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix for about a minute or until fully combined. Scrape sides as needed to ensure all ingredients come together.
- Add eggs one at a time and mix. Scrapes sides of the bowl as needed. Add vanilla and mix.
- Slowly add the sifted dry ingredients together with the wet ingredients. Keep on low speed so you don't lose too much of your flour mixture. I add dry ingredients by the ½ cup until fully mixed together.
- Take small equal sizes of your dough to roll in sections to keep it manageable.
- Roll the dough between two pieces of parchment paper, allow each sheet of dough to cool in the fridge for 30-45 minutes before cutting out shapes.
- While the dough is chilling, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- When the dough is chilled, remove and cut using your selected cookie-cutter(s).
- Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet with space between your cookies. Do not overcrowd.
- Watch your cookies to determine the best amount of time for your size and thickness of cookie selected, bake for 8-12 minutes.
- Remove your cookies once baked to your preference, ideally when the edges are starting to become golden brown.
- Allow cookies to cool fully before icing and decorating them.
Real Talk