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Nothing says the holidays are here quite like a kitchen full of fresh-baked cookies. Whether you’re building a cookie tray for a holiday party, packing tins as gifts for neighbors, or just want an excuse to turn on the oven all December long, this roundup has you covered.
13 Best Christmas Cookie Recipes
From classic gingerbread and buttery shortbread to chewy molasses cookies and festive peppermint crinkles, these 13 Christmas cookie recipes cover every flavor and skill level. Grab your mixing bowls and let’s get baking!
1. Gingerbread Cookies
This beloved gingerbread cookie recipe bakes up with soft centers and crisp edges, thanks to a generous dose of molasses and warming spices like ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. Roll them thick for a soft bite or thin for extra snap.
2. Christmas Sugar Cookies with Icing
These cut-out sugar cookies have soft, thick centers with just a little crisp around the edges, and they’re topped with an easy glaze icing that sets in about a day, so they’re perfect for decorating with the kids.
3. Soft & Thick Snickerdoodles
This reader-favorite snickerdoodle recipe comes together in about 30 minutes with no dough chilling required, and bakes up perfectly puffy and soft with a cinnamon-sugar crackle on top.
4. Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Loaded with dark chocolate chunks and rolled in powdered sugar before baking, these crinkle cookies come out of the oven gooey in the middle with that classic cracked, snowy top.
5. Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
Rich chocolate cookie dough studded with Andes peppermint chips makes these a festive twist on the classic crinkle cookie, with cool peppermint flavor in every bite.
6. Raspberry Almond Linzer Cookies
These delicate almond shortbread sandwich cookies are filled with raspberry jam and topped with a cut-out window that lets the jam peek through, making them a beautiful addition to any cookie tray.
7. Snowball Cookies
Also known as Russian tea cakes or Mexican wedding cookies, these simple five-ingredient shortbread bites get rolled in confectioners’ sugar for a melt-in-your-mouth finish. Toasted pecans are optional but highly recommended.
8. Chewy Molasses Cookies
Soft, chewy, and full of warm spice from ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom, these molasses cookies have crisp sugary edges and a tender center that makes them impossible to eat just one of.
9. Vanilla Brown Sugar Eggnog Cookies
If you’re an eggnog lover, these brown sugar cookies bring all that cozy holiday flavor into cookie form, finished with a creamy vanilla bean glaze and a sprinkle of nutmeg on top.
10. Cranberry Cookies
Soft, chewy, and studded with dried cranberries, pistachios, and chocolate chips, these cinnamon-spiced cookies are a festive, colorful addition to any holiday cookie plate.
11. Spritz Cookies
This buttery, almond-scented dough gets pressed into festive shapes with a cookie press, then decorated with colorful sprinkles for a classic Christmas cookie tin staple.
12. Buttery Shortbread Cookies, 4 Ways
One easy slice-and-bake shortbread dough, four delicious flavor variations: dark chocolate espresso, cranberry orange, nutty cinnamon, and white chocolate coconut. Mix and match for a cookie tray that looks like it took all day.
13. Raspberry Almond Thumbprint Cookies
Buttery almond shortbread dough is shaped into thumbprints and filled with sweet raspberry jam for a simple, elegant cookie that only needs 7 ingredients and one bowl.
With this lineup of 13 Christmas cookie recipes, you’ve got everything you need for a holiday cookie exchange, a gift tin for neighbors, or just a cozy weekend of baking. Save this post so you can come back to it all season long, and let us know which cookie you bake first!
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