Christmas cookies
Christmas cookie recipes you can make ahead
Five cookies for the tray, each with freezer notes, signs that it is done and the fixes for cookies that spread or turn hard. Adaptations of traditional recipes, in our own words.
24 cookies · 55 min
Soft Sugar Cookies (No Chilling)
Soft, buttery drop-style sugar cookies rolled in sugar: no rolling pin, no cutters, no chilling. They freeze as dough or baked, which makes them the dessert you can finish before the week of Christmas.
about 24 cookies · 3 hr
Soft Gingerbread Cookies
Cut-out gingerbread cookies with molasses, ginger and cinnamon that bake up soft in the middle with crisp edges. Make the dough up to 3 days ahead and decorate with a simple icing.
16 bars or wedges · 1 hr 30 min
Buttery Shortbread (3 Ingredients Plus Salt)
Classic pan shortbread: butter, powdered sugar and flour pressed into a pan, pricked with a fork and baked low until pale gold. It keeps for a week, tastes better after a day or two, and freezes, so it is a gift you can make early.
about 40 medium cookies · 1 hr
Soft Snickerdoodles (Cream of Tartar, No Chilling)
Soft, tangy cinnamon-sugar cookies with the crackled tops that only cream of tartar gives. The dough is dropped into cinnamon sugar, flattened and baked in a hot oven for about 11 minutes, with no chilling.
about 48 cookies · 1 hr
Peanut Butter Blossoms (Chocolate Kiss Cookies)
Soft peanut butter cookies rolled in sugar, baked 8 to 10 minutes and topped with a chocolate kiss pressed in the moment they come out of the oven. A Christmas cookie-tray favorite that freezes well.
Cookie questions
- How far ahead can I make Christmas cookies?
- Most keep 5 days to a week in a tin, and dough balls or baked cookies freeze for 2 to 3 months. Shortbread improves after a day or two. Decorate iced cookies after thawing.
- Which Christmas cookies freeze best?
- Sugar cookies, snickerdoodles and peanut butter blossoms freeze well as dough balls (add the chocolate kisses after baking). Gingerbread dough and shortbread also freeze well. Freeze undecorated, then ice after thawing.
- How many cookies per person for a cookie tray?
- Plan 3 to 4 cookies per person of each of 3 to 4 varieties at a party, or 6 to 8 total per person if cookies are the only dessert.
- How do I keep cookies soft?
- Pull them from the oven while the centers still look slightly underdone, cool them fully and store in a sealed container. A slice of bread in the tin helps for a day or two.