These are fan-favorite cut-out Christmas sugar cookies! My recipe for sugar cookies promises flavorful cookies with soft and thick centers, slightly crisp edges, and flat tops for decorating. The dough comes together with 7–8 simple ingredients, and the cookies hold their cookie cutter shape in the oven. Decorate them with my easy glaze cookie icing, a wonderful alternative to royal icing. Get out your rolling pin and favorite cookie cutters and have fun!
I originally published this recipe in 2014 and have since added new photos, a video tutorial, a few more success tips, and a list of helpful tools.
The holiday season and a batch of decorated Christmas sugar cookies go hand-in-hand. Today’s recipe is a classic staple, and has been a popular favorite since I first published it many years ago. It’s basically my favorite sugar cookie recipe, but all dressed up for the holidays. And I love that you don’t need to mess with royal icing! The cookie icing below is unfussy and low maintenance, which is definitely appreciated if you’re baking a lot of cookies in December. 😉
Here’s Why You’ll Love These Christmas Sugar Cookies
- Soft, thick centers with slightly crisp edges
- Irresistible buttery vanilla flavor
- Made from simple ingredients
- Leave plain or flavor with extras like maple, cinnamon, peppermint, and more
- Hold shape while baking
- Icing is manageable for young bakers and beginners
- Freeze beautifully
- Easy-to-follow recipe used by beginner and expert bakers alike
By the way, if you love sugar cookies, but aren’t up for decorating with icing, you’ll enjoy my stained glass window cookies, Christmas sparkle cookies, pecan sugar cookies, or drop Christmas sugar cookies instead.
How to Make Christmas Sugar Cookies
You need 7–8 ingredients for the dough. With so few ingredients, it’s important to follow the recipe closely, because each one has an important job. Creamed butter and sugar form the base of the dough. Egg and flour provide structure, and vanilla adds flavor. I almost always add a touch of almond extract for additional flavor, and highly recommend that you try it too! You could also use peppermint extract or another flavor extract instead. Baking powder adds lift, and salt balances the sweet.
So many little ingredients doing big jobs to create a perfect cookie:
Success Tip: Make sure you start with proper room temperature butter. Room temperature butter is cool to the touch and about 65°F (18°C), which may be cooler than your kitchen. To test the butter to make sure it’s ready to cream, poke it with your finger. Your finger should make an indent without sinking down into the butter. The butter should not be shiny or greasy.
This is a recipe that requires some planning ahead.
After you make the cookie dough, it must chill for 1–2 hours, and up to 2 days. Chilling is a mandatory step. Without chilling, these cookie cutter sugar cookies won’t hold shape. You don’t want your snowman-shaped cookie turning into the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man (though that could work for Halloween cookies).
Also, the icing recipe below needs at least 24 hours to dry/set (but you can certainly eat them prior to the icing drying!). This is much longer than royal icing, which usually dries in 2 hours. So even though we’re not messing with finicky royal icing, we do have to wait longer to stack/transport the cookies.
After you make the cookie dough, divide it in half:
And then roll out each portion of dough before chilling:
Let’s talk about rolling out this dough, because it’s an unusual order of steps.
3 Tricks to Rolling Out Christmas Cookie Dough
- Trick #1: Pay attention to the order of the steps. Notice how I roll out the dough BEFORE chilling it in the refrigerator? That’s the most important trick! Let me explain why I do this. Just like when you’re making chocolate chip cookies, to prevent the cookies from over-spreading, the dough must chill. If you’ve ever tried rolling out chilled sugar cookie dough, you may remember how difficult it is to roll out cold, stiff dough. So, roll out the dough while it’s still soft (right after mixing it together), and then chill the rolled-out dough.
- Trick #2: Divide the dough in half before rolling it out. Why? Smaller sections of dough are easier to roll out.
- Trick #3: Roll out the cookie dough directly on a silicone baking mat or parchment paper so you can easily transfer it to the refrigerator. Pick the whole thing up, set it on a baking sheet, and place it in the refrigerator. If you don’t have enough room for two baking sheets in your refrigerator, simply stack the pieces of rolled-out dough on top of each other, with parchment paper or silicone baking mat in between. You can see me doing this in the video tutorial below.
After the rolled-out dough chills for at least 1–2 hours, use cookie cutters to cut out shapes, and re-roll your scraps. Remember, you have two slabs of dough.
Arrange cookies on a lined baking sheet. I usually get about 2 dozen 3-inch cookies from this recipe. Here’s some of the cookies before baking:
And after baking:
Use My Easy Cookie Icing
My easy cookie icing recipe below is a great alternative to traditional royal icing. It’s like a very thick opaque glaze and comes together quickly with a fork and a mixing bowl. This is one of my favorite ways to decorate sugar cookies because it’s low maintenance, but still delivers pretty (and tasty) results. I have a separate cookie icing page dedicated to it, and it can be used on pretty much any cookie cutter cookies like gingerbread cookies, brown sugar cut-out cookies, chocolate sugar cookies, Valentine’s Day cookies, or Easter cookies.
(I also have a recipe for thick cookie buttercream, if you’d like that option!)
Here’s why you’ll love the cookie glaze icing:
- 5 basic ingredients
- Can tint the icing different colors
- Can use squeeze bottle or piping tips to decorate
- Manageable for everyone
- Doesn’t dry into hard cement texture
- After it dries, you can stack, freeze, and transport cookies
You need confectioners’ sugar, water, vanilla extract (replace with water to keep the icing stark white), a touch of corn syrup, and a little salt. The corn syrup gives the icing sticking power and creates a beautiful sheen when the icing dries. The icing sets after 24 hours, so you can easily stack these Christmas sugar cookies for storage, transport, or even shipping.
Yes, you can create gourmet-looking Christmas cookies like the ones above without royal icing! For more decorating inspiration, see my video tutorial on how to decorate sugar cookies.
Christmas Sugar Cookie Tools
Before I leave you with the recipe, let me suggest some useful sugar cookie tools. These are the exact products I use in my own kitchen:
- Electric Mixer: stand mixer or handheld.
- Baking Sheets: I use and love these baking sheets.
- Parchment or Baking Mats: silicone baking mats or parchment sheets (for rolling out & transferring the rolled-out dough, and for baking the cookies).
- Rolling Pin: This is my favorite rolling pin. If you have difficulty evenly rolling out dough, try this adjustable rolling pin. It’s really helpful!
- Cookie Cutters: If you’d like suggestions for cookie cutters, I love Ann Clark brand. (Not sponsored, just a genuine fan!) The pictured shapes came from this holiday cookie cutter set.
- Food Coloring: Liquid food coloring can alter the consistency of the icing, so I recommend gel food coloring. I like Americolor brand.
- Squeeze Bottle: To make decorating a breeze, use a squeeze bottle. They’re less intimidating than piping tips and very easy to use. If you want to use a piping tip, I love Wilton #4 for decorating sugar cookies. (You’ll also need a disposable or reusable piping bag if using a piping tip.)
These baking tools would be great to add to your holiday wish list. And while you’re at it, be sure to check out my guide of Holiday Gifts for Bakers. Lots of fun ideas in there, either for yourself or other baker friends! You can also review my recommended Best Cookie Baking Tools and Cookie Decorating Supplies for even more suggestions.
Craving More Christmas Cookies?
- Peanut Butter Blossoms (same base dough as these peanut butter cookies!)
- Gingerbread Cookies
- Lace Cookies
- Homemade Gingerbread House
- Spritz Cookies
- Butter Cookies and Chocolate Butter Cookies
- Snowball Cookies
- Pinwheel Cookies
- Hot Cocoa Cookies
This recipe is part of my annual cookie countdown called Sally’s Cookie Palooza. It’s the biggest, most delicious event of the year! Browse dozens of cookie recipes over on the Sally’s Cookie Palooza page.
Christmas Sugar Cookies Recipe with Easy Icing
- Prep Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
- Yield: 24 3-inch cookies and 1.5 cups icing
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Cut-out Christmas sugar cookies with crisp edges and soft centers. This icing recipe is so simple, making decorating hassle-free!
Ingredients
Cookies
- 2 and 1/4 cups (281g) all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more as needed for rolling and work surface
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (12 Tbsp; 170g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional, but makes the flavor outstanding)*
Easy Icing
- 3 cups (360g) confectioners’ sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (omit and replace with water for stark white icing)
- 2 teaspoons light corn syrup*
- 4.5–5 Tablespoons (67–75ml) room temperature water
- pinch salt*
- optional: gel food coloring & sprinkles for decorating
Instructions
- Make sure you have allotted enough time (and enough counter space!) to make these cookies. The cookie dough needs to chill, the cookies need to cool completely, and the icing needs 24 hours to completely set. If enjoying right away and hardened icing isn’t a concern, you’ll only need about 3–4 hours to make these.
- Make the cookie dough: Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a large bowl using a handheld or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together on high speed until completely smooth and creamy, about 3 minutes. (Here’s a helpful tutorial if you need guidance on how to cream butter and sugar.) Add the egg, vanilla, and almond extract (if using), and beat on high speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl and beat again as needed to combine.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined. Dough will be a bit soft. If the dough seems too soft and sticky for rolling, add 1 more Tablespoon of flour.
- Divide the dough into 2 equal parts. Place each portion onto a piece of lightly floured parchment paper or a lightly floured silicone baking mat. With a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough out to about 1/4-inch thickness. Use more flour if the dough seems too sticky. The rolled-out dough can be any shape, as long as it is evenly 1/4-inch thick.
- Lightly dust one of the rolled-out doughs with flour. Place a piece of parchment on top. (This prevents sticking.) Place the second rolled-out dough on top. Cover with plastic wrap or aluminum foil, then refrigerate for at least 1–2 hours and up to 2 days.
- Once chilled, preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line 2–3 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Carefully remove the top dough piece from the refrigerator. If it’s sticking to the bottom, run your hand under it to help remove it. Using a cookie cutter, cut the dough into shapes. Re-roll the remaining dough and continue cutting until all is used. Repeat with second piece of dough. (Note: It doesn’t seem like a lot of dough, but you get a lot of cookies from the dough scraps you re-roll.)
- Arrange cookies on baking sheets about 3 inches apart. Bake for 11–12 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. If your oven has hot spots, rotate the baking sheet halfway through bake time. Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating. No need to cover the cookies as they cool.
- Make the icing: Using a fork, stir the confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, corn syrup, and 4.5 Tablespoons (67ml) of water, and optional salt together in a medium bowl. It will be very thick and almost impossible to stir. Switch to a whisk and whisk in 1/2 Tablespoon (8ml) more of water. If you lift the whisk and let the icing drizzle back into the bowl, the ribbon of icing will hold shape for a few seconds before melting back into the icing. That is when you know it’s the right consistency and is ready to use. If it’s too thick (sometimes it is), whisk in another 1/2 Tablespoon (8ml) of water or a little more until you reach the proper consistency.
- If you’re tinting the icing another color, stir in the food coloring. You can pour some icing into different bowls if using multiple colors. When tinting icing, use only 1–2 drops at first, stir it in, then add more as needed to reach your desired color. Remember, color darkens as icing dries.
- Decorate the cookies: You can dip the cookies into the icing or use squeeze bottles or piping bags (reusable or disposable) fitted with piping tips (I usually use Wilton Piping Tip #4). Decorate your cookies as desired. If using the squeeze bottles or piping tips, I usually outline cookies with icing first, then fill in the middle. If adding sprinkles on top of the icing, add them right after applying icing on your cookie.
- Let icing dry/set: Feel free to enjoy cookies before icing completely dries. Icing dries in 24 hours. No need to cover the decorated cookies as you wait for the icing to set. If it’s helpful, decorate the cookies directly on a baking sheet so you can place the entire baking sheet in the refrigerator to help slightly speed up the icing setting. Once the icing has dried, these cookies are great for gifting or for sending.
- Cover and store decorated cookies for up to 5 days at room temperature or up to 10 days in the refrigerator.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: Plain or decorated sugar cookies freeze well up to 3 months. Wait for the icing to set completely before layering between sheets of parchment paper in a freezer-friendly container. To thaw, thaw in the refrigerator or at room temperature. You can also freeze the cookie dough for up to 3 months before rolling it out. Prepare the dough through step 4, divide in half, flatten both halves into a disc as we do with pie crust, wrap each in plastic wrap, then freeze. To thaw, thaw the discs in the refrigerator, then bring to room temperature for about 1 hour. Roll out the dough as directed in step 5, then chill rolled-out dough in the refrigerator for 45 minutes–1 hour before cutting into shapes and baking.
- Make-Ahead Instructions & Storing Icing: If not decorating right away, cover the icing tightly and keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. You can store in piping bags (with clips or rubber bands to seal ends), in squeeze bottles, or covered in bowl or container. Bring to room temperature before using. If icing has thickened up, add a few drops of water and mix in to thin out. Depending how you stored the icing (squeeze bottle/piping bag/container or bowl) shake squeeze bottle to mix/massage piping bag to mix/whisk in bowl or container to mix.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Sheets | Rolling Pin or Adjustable Rolling Pin | Holiday Cookie Cutter Set | Cooling Rack | Squeeze Bottle | Piping Bag (Disposable or Reusable) | Americolor Soft Gel Paste Color Kit | Couplers | Wilton Tip #4
- Room Temperature Butter: Room temperature butter is essential. If the dough is too sticky, your butter may have been too soft. Room temperature butter is actually cool to the touch. Room temperature egg is preferred so it’s quickly and evenly mixed into the cookie dough.
- Flavors: I love flavoring this cookie dough with 1/2 teaspoon almond extract as listed in the ingredients above. For lighter flavor, use 1/4 teaspoon. Instead of the almond extract, try using 1 teaspoon of maple extract, coconut extract, lemon extract, or peppermint extract. Or add 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice or ground cinnamon. If using lemon extract, you can also add 1 Tablespoon lemon zest.
- Corn Syrup: Corn syrup gives the icing sticking power and creates a beautiful sheen on the dried icing. I don’t recommend skipping it, but you can if absolutely needed.
- Salt: I know salt isn’t a typical ingredient in cookie icing, but it helps offset its sweetness. You need just a small pinch.
- Yield of Icing: This amount of icing is enough for icing 2 dozen cookies. You’ll have plenty if you want to divide it and tint the batch multiple colors, too. Icing can easily be halved by halving all of the ingredients. (Still add a tiny pinch of salt.)
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
Reader Comments and Reviews
i love these cookies
Yay and nay. Loved the pre-roll chill plan. Works great! Not a fan of the glaze taste so I used it as an outline then filled in with buttercream.
What a good recipe for the holidays! Merry Christmas!
I loved this! Easy to follow recipe. They came out looking so cute and tasting delicious. Thank you
If your butter is too soft you’ll have to add more flour. Follow Sally’s instructions and don’t let the butter become too soft. Great cookies.
Second year in a row of making these sugar cookies for Christmas, they are always a hit! A little time consuming but a new Christmas tradition that I love dearly. They are so cute and festive and they taste great.
Quick question though, I have been super organised this year and have already baked and iced my cookies ready for Christmas, they are currently frozen as per instructions. When thawing out though, do you thaw them out stacked on top of each other still in the container? Or should they be only one layer? Is the fridge best? Should they still be covered? I just don’t want to ruin the nice icing and sprinkle decorations we have done with condensation, sticking, colour spreading etc.
Thanks!
Hi Alex! We just thaw them in the container we froze them in, thaw overnight in the fridge. Did you stack them between layers of parchment paper? That’s what we recommend for freezing/thawing.
Despite other successful recipes. I have tried this one three separate times with very poor results. I keep forgetting to switch for another. Simply a sticky fussy dough and difficult to work with. You can continue to add flour and try but there are easier doughs out there to work with. I am sad to leave this review but hope to save people from the disappointment and wasted time/ effort. Cake recipes are always spot on though!
The cookies were decent but the icing was absolutely disgusting. Very very runny & couldn’t even decorate with it & it tasted like perfumed soap. Honestly wouldn’t recommend
Made these yesterday and was very impressed! They are so good, though I kind of wish they were a little sweeter. No worries though, I think I prefer them this way so that they aren’t too sweet with the addition of the icing. This was my first time making icing and it was so delicious I had to stop myself from taste-testing lol! The recipe doubles beautifully and the cutouts held their shape. Cut out quickly and roll out scraps quickly. Put in oven as soon as possible while dough is still cool. Put smaller scraps back in fridge while you roll out the next sheet, then add scraps together in the end. If you let the dough warm to room temp, the shapes will spread a bit.
I do have a question about the icing. I followed the measurements, mostly. I decided not to double the icing recipe as I did with the cookies, but I had the doubled measurements written next to the original ones and accidentally added double the vanilla (it still tasted delicious). My icing was pretty runny. It didn’t sit on the cooled cookie as it looks in the picture. Would adding more powdered sugar thicken it up or should I add more corn syrup? I plan to make another batch today so we can finish decorating and don’t want to use the store-bought icing as a border to hold the icing in. Thanks!!
Hi Kristin! Adding more powdered sugar will help thicken the icing up. Glad you enjoyed these!
Followed recipe exactly and dough was really crumbly. I managed to get them into disks to freeze but worried they won’t roll out when defrosted. How do you get moisture back in? Definitely do not want more flour. Thanks.
Hi Deborah! Sounds like there’s too much flour in your dough. How did you measure the flour? Make sure to spoon and level (instead of scooping) to avoid packing in too much flour into your measuring cups – or use a kitchen scale. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post. You could try mixing in just a tiny bit of milk to this batch, but if it is already chilling, just go ahead with the recipe and try to roll it out best you can. You can add a tiny bit of water with your fingers when rolling to prevent cracks.
I love this recipe – I’ve had this idea that I wanted to make a cut out cookie flavored with orange so instead of almond extract, I added the zest from two oranges and it worked great! I finished them with a simple glaze made from powdered sugar and orange juice and they turned out delicious!
I would love to make these, but can’t have almond extract. Have you ever tried lemon? Thanks!
Yes, lemon extract is great here! See recipe Notes for details.
Been making these since you first shared the recipe several years ago! Delicious cookies and they are easy to freeze and thaw. I decorate them after freezing.
These are phenomenal. This is now my go-to sugar cookie recipe. Followed directions exactly and they’re perfect every time. For those having trouble, try weighing your flour. Game changer.
I’m looking to make this recipe later tonight, could I swap out simple syrup for corn syrup? I saw some comments saying you could swap for honey and then not to. If omitting the corn syrup will they still be stackable?
Hi Emily, honey is a great substitute for the corn syrup. I would use that over simple syrup.
I’ve made this recipe before and been very happy! Where I live now, I haven’t found corn syrup. Would it be better to use honey than nothing? Will the cookies taste like honey? I don’t like the flavor of honey very much so am hesitant, but I trust Sally’s advice.☺️
Hi Susan, the cookies won’t have a heavy honey taste, but if you can easily detect it then you might prefer making it without. Glad these are a favorite for you!
So cute and delicious! Thank you so much for sharing ❤
This is my favorite Christmas cookie! I used to attempt gingerbread cookies every year but the sticky dough is exhausting. This dough is so easy to work with, and the easy icing is just my speed. My only “complaint” is that even when I double the recipe, my family and I gobble them up before we get an opportunity to share them!
This looks like a great recipe! Could I make the icing a few days early? I want to make it tonight for a party that is on Friday – would that work or would it harden too much?
Hi Haley, if not decorating right away, cover the icing tightly and keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. See our easy icing post for more make ahead details. Enjoy!
This recipe was great! I only hade to add a little more flour for the dough but it cut into shapes perfectly. I used store bought icing and it worked great. I will be making these again next year!
This is the absolute best cookie recipe(after reading about proper “room temp” butter texture. I had been letting my butter get way to soft and shiny). I love the tip of rolling out the dough and then freezing. I cut out my cookies and placed them on my cookie sheets so much quicker this time. I love all of your recipes I have tried so far
How many cookies does this make? My son is making some for a school project. Him and his friend need to make 90! I don’t know if we need to double, triple, or what!
Hi Holt, this recipe yields about 24 3-inch cookies.
I would love to try this recipe, but where I live, I can’t get corn syrup. I know you said that I can leave it out if necessary, but I was wondering if there exists a substitute.
Hi Peggy! We would just leave it out if you don’t have corn syrup.
Hi Sally! I have used your sugar cookie recipe before and loved the outcome!! I am going to try making Ninja Turtle sugar cookies for my son’s birthday. I have a cookie cutter and will fill in the colors with icing. I want to outline the cookie shape and the face features thinly in black and then fill in (“flood?”) with other colors. Is there a preferred icing to use for outlining vs filling in? If I decide to buy icing and the appropriate piping tools, could I use that as well to do all the icing? Thank you!!!!
Hi Jen! We’re happy to help. While you can use this icing to make an outline and flood, it does take about 24 hours to fully dry/set, so just keep that in mind from a timing perspective. You may wish to use royal icing instead, as it’s better for precise details and drys/sets more quickly. There are some store-bought icings already in piping bags that may work, although we have not tested any to know how well they set. You do not want to use frosting from can. We hope this helps and that the cookies are a hit for your son’s birthday!
This recipe was amazing. I literally had to HIDE it from the kids! My kids are definitely making these for Santa…lol
I loved this recipe so much!
Dough was sticky at first and then I added 1 more tablespoon of flour. Soft but easy to roll out that way. Cookies tasted great and the kids helped decorating with this icing. New recipe we will come back to every year! Thanks Sally.
I LOVE this recipe and have made it for years. Quick question… I froze my dough already cut in shapes and baked them on Thursday. I frosted them last night but my cookie exchange got pushed back a week! How can I store the frosted cookies so they’ll be just as delicious in a week?!?
Hi Hannah, you can freeze the iced cookies. Thaw them at room temperature the morning of or the night before.
Followed the recipe exactly and the dough was super sticky. Added the recommended flour and more and it was still a sticky mess. I thought chilling it would help, but no luck. Stuck to all of my parchment paper and was completely unusable for cutout cookies. Managed to scrape off a bit and roll into balls and bake (since my kiddos were so excited for cookies) and they spread terribly. I bake a lot and have never had this happen with a recipe before. It was really disappointing after spending all of my time and energy on this, for my kids to be sad they couldn’t cut out any cookies. Hope other people had luck with this. I personally won’t use this recipe again.
Hi Michelle, thanks for your feedback. Was your butter quite soft and warm by chance? You still want it cool to the touch. I’m surprised that by adding a little flour flour and chilling the dough that it was still too soft to roll. Perhaps even a little more flour could have helped.
These cookies are wonderful and so is the icing! I tried a different recipe last year that was pretty flavorless and the icing wouldn’t dry. These cookies are soft and the icing set. My tip to others is to watch them carefully and do not over bake.
Can this dough be used to make candy cane cookies (red and white twirled together)?
I haven’t personally tested it, and I do fear the dough won’t hold that shape without a little more flour. Let me know if you try it though.