How to Make Classic Christmas Cutout Cookies at Home

Swap the circles for snowflakes, trees, and tiny candy canes, then slather on glossy red and green icing—suddenly, sugar cookies transform from basic to runway-ready, dazzling with December’s best. Christmas cutout cookies bring a dash of holiday magic to your kitchen, even for folks like me who usually play it safe with classic rounds.

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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). 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.

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

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.

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.

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.
• If you don’t have Christmas cookie cutters, you can just use the top of a glass to make circular sugar cookies.

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