The most gorgeous cookies of the holiday season. These super whimsical christmas tree cookies are covered in sweet pink icing, glittering sugar sprinkles and shiny gold decorations.
These cookies are like my ultimate dream Christmas tree. I wish I could bring these to life to have in my house.
They are just so simple and fun but also super elegant and glam and sophisticated. They're really easy to decorate, you don't have to do any fancy piping techniques and they come out really impressive.
They are just so simple and fun but also super elegant and glam and sophisticated. They're really easy to decorate, you don't have to do any fancy piping techniques and they come out really impressive.
This is my go-to vanilla sugar cookie recipe for perfect, thick cut-out cookies that don't spread and loose their shape when you bake them. They're soft and tender with a little bit of crunch around the edges and make the perfect canvas for decorating.
We're frosting these in a super duper simple, hard-drying cookie icing that we just spoon into a little plastic ziploc bag to decorate with, so there's nothing tricky about these.
A little trick I use, is rolling the dough between parchment paper or wax paper. This way you don't need to add extra flour to roll it out, and it doesn't stick to rolling pin or the table, so you can just pop it in the fridge to firm up a bit and you're all set to cut out your shapes.
Another tip for when you're cutting out your shapes, is to work quickly while the dough is still nice and cold form the fridge. This is going to help when you transfer the shapes to your cookie sheet. So, you can even work with half the dough at a time, and leave the other half in the fridge to keep it nice and chilled.
To make these extra fancy, we're just using sugar sprinkles as the tinsel and I'm going to show you how to make these edible gold sugar pearl ornaments and star sprinkles to decorate the trees with.
You can really make these any color you like, you can do classic green trees or do fun rainbow trees, so get creative and have fun. These also make a really fun activity for kids, if you want to let them decorate their own trees for a special treat.
I make these just about every Christmas because I like to just add a cookie in a clear baggie to the outside of gift, for a really sweet little extra touch.
What I love most about these, is the baked cookies freeze wonderfully so you can make ahead of time, too, if you're really busy around the holiday season but still want to be able to serve something really special for Christmas or to bring to a holiday party.
If you love this recipe, you are going to love my Pink and Gold Watercolor Cookies
or my Giant Gingerbread Man Cookie, so be sure to check those videos out too!
or my Giant Gingerbread Man Cookie, so be sure to check those videos out too!
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Christmas Tree Sugar Cookies
Yield: about 2 dozen cookies
Ingredients
Roll Out Sugar Cookies
- 2 3/4 all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled, add up to 1/4 cup extra if needed
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened or cold cut up into cubes
- 1 cup (192g) white granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Cookie Icing
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2-3 teaspoons milk or water
- 2 teaspoons corn syrup
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, peppermint or almond extract
- 1 drop pink food coloring, optional
Decorating
- Christmas tree cookie cutter: http://amzn.to/2gnqvgT
- 1/2 cup white or gold sugar sprinkles: http://amzn.to/2xBZeiN
- white sugar pearls: http://amzn.to/2wWy7Sj
- star sprinkles: http://amzn.to/2etXe7m
- clear vanilla extract: http://amzn.to/2wn4NTy
- edible gold pearl/lustre dust: http://amzn.to/2wnsyej
- food-safe paint brushes: http://amzn.to/2vOwAss
Directions
Cookies:
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. With an electric mixer, beat together softened butter and sugar on medium speed until smooth and combined, about 1-2 minutes. On low speed, beat in the egg and vanilla. Slowly beat in the four mixture until dough forms and is no longer sticky, adding up to 1/4 cup extra flour as necessary.
Roll out dough about 1/3-1/4 inch thick, between two pieces of parchment paper to avoid sticking to your work surface. Refrigerate dough for at least 1 hour or over night.
When ready to bake, remove dough from fridge. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut out shapes with a Christmas tree cookie cutter and transfer to a parchment or silicone lined baking sheet. Chill in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up, so cookies hold their shape better while baking. Bake for 8-10 minutes, depending on size. Re-roll the remaining dough and continue cutting until all dough is used. Cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an air tight container until ready to decorate (Up to a week at room temp, or frozen for a few months).
Icing:
Whisk together all ingredients until smooth and thick. Transfer a few spoonfuls of white icing to a plastic ziploc bag. Add a drop of pink food coloring to the remaining icing if desired. Transfer to a plastic ziploc bag and press out any air.
Decorating:
To create gold "ornaments" and stars, mix together a few drops of clear vanilla extract with about 1/2 teaspoon of edible gold dust to create a smooth liquid, the consistency of paint. If you add too much liquid, the color will not be as vibrant. Add your star sprinkles and your sugar pearls and mix into the gold paint until fully coated. The dusts tends to settle at the bottom of the bowl, so make sure to keep stirring it up from the bottom. Remove from the bowl and let dry on a piece or wax paper.
Snip off a tiny piece of the corner of the bags and pipe an outline of pink onto the tops of cooled cookies. Once dry, add an additional teaspoon of milk or water to the pink icing bag to thin it out and flood the rest of cookie in with icing. Let dry. Pipe a zigzag of the white icing back and forth form side to side, all the way down the cookie and press into a plate of sprinkles, to create tinsel on the tree. Pipe little dots of white icing on the tree and add the gold pearls as ornaments and a star on top, using a pair of clean food tweezers, so the gold paint doesn't come off on your fingers. Let cookies dry completely overnight before stacking or packaging.