Easy Christmas Vanilla Sugar Cookies With 2 Ingredient Icing

These Christmas Sugar Cookies are a staple in our house during the holiday baking season because they’re really easy to make, and such a great creative outlet. They make the perfect addition to your Christmas table or better yet, a great holiday cookie gift option! These sugar cookies don’t spread as they bake which means you can use any cookie cutter you like and get nice crisp edges with a slightly soft center. They also bake flat  making decorating with any cookie icing you like to create simple but effective decorations!

Hey team! Christmas time means gift giving right? Why not make your gifts edible! I actually don’t like the pressure of buying and giving gifts each year, I’m all about cookie boxes. Two of my favorites are my Chocolate Amarettior Vanilla Amaretti cookies, both are easy to make and perfectly chewy. I love gifting my Raspberry Filled Linzer Cookies too. These Christmas Vanilla Cookies are also a classic option. They’re lightly spiced with cinnamon. I love adding some orange zest to make them even more festive.

You’ll love how easy these are to roll and cut out. Theres a simple no fuss trick to get them rolled out with no mess that I’ll take you through in the post. Cutting them out is fun too because these cookies don’t spread which means you can use any cookie cutter shape and get nice crisp edges with slightly soft centers.

Decorating is the fun part! This is where you can easily turn these into a fun baking project for kids! I’ve got you covered with an Easy 2 Ingredient Cookie Icing that sets firm but soft enough to bit into. For a more nostalgic and classic option, give my Royal Icing a go! Both icings are easy to color and flavor and piping them onto your cookies is so fun much! I love giving myself the challenge of not having two cookies look alike.

So really the only thing you need to figure out is if you’re keep these or gift them!

Why I Love Making These Sugar Cookies Every Christmas!

Here’s why these cookies have become a yearly favorite!

• These cookies hold their shape perfectly – Which means your stars stay stars and your trees stay trees.
• Little kick of Christmas flavor – I love adding cinnamon and orange zest to pretty much everything I bake at Christmas. Is it Christmas without it?
• Quick simple icing – My 2-ingredient Icing is really easy to make and use to decorate these cookies. I’ll share more about that in the step-by-step photo section!
• Great baking project for kids. Busy hands and minds for a bit of peace on earth.
• Such a great gifting option! I don’t enjoy gift buying, but I love baking so naturally if you know me, you’re getting cookies from me. I love how much more personal a homemade cookie is! Each to their own though!

Why These Cookies Don’t Spread When You Bake Them.

In short, they don’t spread! So you can use any cookie cutter you like, and get perfect edges that keep their shape. It’s all down to the balance of ingredients and their measurements. Specifically, the ratio of butter and flour.

Chilling your cookie dough after it’s been rolled out also plays a really big roll. Two things happen at the same time when they bake in the oven.

• The heat from the oven melts the butter slowly, giving the cookies enough time to set their structure.
• The sugar caramelizes giving them their crisp edges, acting as kind of a barrier to stop them from spreading.

If the dough isn’t chilled before going into the oven, the butter melts too quickly, causing the cookies to spread and lose their shape in the oven.

You’ll Need A Few Simple Ingredients

• Unsalted butter – It’s important to make sure the butter is properly softened for this recipe. It’ll give you the right texture. Properly softened butter is cooler than most people think. I’ve got a full guide on how to properly soften butter on the blog if you want to check it out!
• Caster sugar – Sometimes known as superfine sugar, is best to use for this recipe because it creams better than granulated sugar with the butter. If you can’t get caster sugar, you can use granulated sugar, you might need to cream for a couple minutes longer.
• Vanilla Extract – You want to make sure you use good quality vanilla extract. I have a great Pure vanilla extract recipe that will work well, but you can also use vanilla bean paste if you want little specks in your dessert.
• Orange zest – I basically add orange zest to everything around the holidays.
• Egg – Make sure your egg is at room temperature before using. If you’re like me and you store your eggs in the fridge, you can quickly bring them to room temperature by adding to a bowl with warm water. Let it rest for 1-2 minutes, then use.
• Plain flour – also known as plain flour, is what’s going to give your cookies their structure. My biggest tip here is to measure using kitchen scales. Even an extra 20g can give you a different textured cookie!
• Cinnamon – Adds a bit of Christmas flavor to these cookies!
• Baking powder – will help make your cookies lighter.
• Salt – I used fine salt.
• Cookie icing – I used my 2 Ingredient Cookie Icing for these cookies, but my Easy Royal Icing will also work if you want something that sets firmer.

How To Make The Dough

• Cream the softened butter, sugar, vanilla extract and orange zest until pale and creamy. About 2 minutes. I have a guide on how to properly soften your butter if you want to check that out. It’ll make sure your cookies and nice and light instead of dense and greasy.
• Add the flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt and use the electric mixer to mix on low or a spatula to mix until the dough is fully formed and no dry ingredients are showing.

So that’s your dough done. You’ll want to split it into two even sized pieces and roll each one out individually.

How To Get Evenly Rolled Dough

• Prep first by cutting out 4-6 large pieces of baking paper, a little smaller than the length of your baking tray.
• To roll, add a piece of your dough on top of one sheet of baking paper and then cover with another piece of baking paper. This will stop the dough from sticking to your rolling pin.
• Roll out to about 4mm. You can roll them out thicker if you like, they’ll just bake a little softer in the center. I use silicone rolling strips which I place on either side to help me make sure my dough is an even thickness as I roll.
• Once you roll out the dough place it on a baking tray, roll the other piece out and stack them on top of each other. Chill in the fridge for a good 30 minutes. Get them nice and chill. In the mean time, preheat your oven!

Cutting Out Your Cookies

• Take one of the rolled pieces of dough out of the fridge (leave the other one in there) and take the top layer of baking paper off. Use any cookie cutter you like to cut out the chilled dough. Work quickly because the dough will soften.
• If the dough sticks to the baking paper, use a little spatula to lift the dough up from the bottom and transfer to a baking tray lined with baking paper.

TIP: If it’s a warm day, work quickly. I’d also recommend chilling the cut-out cookie dough pieces in the fridge for another 30 minutes before baking to make sure you get nice crisp shapes.

Can you roll out the scraps?

Yep! You can do this about 2 times. Smoosh it back into a ball of dough, roll out the same way and chill again before baking. This recipe is great because there’s very little waste!

Baking Your Cookies

• Bake your cookies on the middle rack of your oven for about 10 minutes or until lightly golden around the edges. Once baked, let them cool for about 10-15 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. I wouldn’t even dream of icing them while they’re still warm. Picture the melting which from The Wizard Of Oz.

How To Make The Icing

Putting the icing together is super easy, but I have a full guide on my 2 ingredient cookie icing and my royal icing if you want to check those out. Both icings will work great for this recipe. I used my 2-ingredient cookie icing because I love gifting these and it has no eggs.

• You just mix the two ingredients together in a bowl using a spatula. Try not to over do it because we don’t want air in that icing. It’ll be the texture of

• From here you can color and flavor your icing as well. It’s super easy to do using essence or extracts and food gel colors.

Decorating Your Cookies: The Fun Part!

Ok, so here’s the fun part. Decorating! So this is a Christmas cookie. I popped on Pinterest and searched for ‘Christmas cookie designs’ and took inspiration from there for my designs. You can keep your icing white and go for a simple classic look or go for fun Christmas designs.

You’ll want to add your icing to a piping bag. I like using a Wilton #2, #3 or #4 (the thickest I go) to decorate my cookies because a piping tip gives me more control when I want intricate details.

• Start by piping a perimeter around your cookie shape.
• Then flood the cookie with more icing to fill in the shape.
• Give the cookie a bit of a shake to even out the icing. It’ll help fill in any gaps the icing might have too.

How to get layered designs

Getting intricate, 3D details on your cookies is really easy. Once you’ve iced the first layer onto your cookies, let them dry for about 4 hours before adding the next layer of details. I like doing this with my Christmas cookies. Especially my Christmas trees. I pipe the green icing on first, then let it dry before piping on the string and Christmas lights.

Tips & Tricks For Recipe Success!

• Chill the dough – chilling the dough after it’s been rolled out firms up the butter which melts slower in the oven giving the edges time to crisp up. That’s how you get nice clean edges with these cookies!
• Roll evenly – You’ll want to use a large rolling pin for these cookies. I like using rolling strips which I bought on amazon. They’re made of silicone and they come in different thicknesses. You put them on either side of your dough and roll. It stops you from rolling any lower than the thickness of the strips you’re using.’
• Don’t overmix the dough – Mix until it just comes together, and no dry ingredients are showing. They usually like to hide at the bottom of the bowl. Overmixing can make your cookies tough.
• Cut smart – when you cut out your cookies, cut nice and close together to minimize scraps. I almost turn it into a game. It’s like cookie Tetris! Cutting them nice and close is going to help reduce the number of times you need to re-roll and cut out again.

Storing and making ahead

So the holidays are a busy time of the year right? You might want to make these cookies ahead of time and then gift them when you need to leading to Christmas. Or you could bake them and then have kids decorate them closer to Christmas. Here’s how to do all of that!

Making the dough ahead of time

You can put the dough together and roll it out, storing it on baking trays up to 2 days ahead. Just wrap the trays in plastic wrap to stop the dough drying out.

Baking the cookies ahead of time

You can bake the cookies and then store them, stacked on top of each other in an airtight container for up to two weeks. They keep really well when stored in a cool, dry place.

Storing decorated cookies

Once you’ve iced and decorated your cookies let the icing set completely, about 24 hours should do it. I usually just let the cookies set for at least 4 hours, then cover with a tea towel on the baking tray to dry completely overnight. Once dried completely, store them in an airtight container for up to a week in a cool dry spot.

It’s really important to let them dry completely before storing otherwise they may stick to each other if you stack them on top of each other in a container when the icing isn’t fully dried.

How many cookies will you get?

It depends on how thick or thin you roll your dough out. I roll mine to about 4mm / 0.16-inches thick. It’s not too thin or thick. Gives you a good cookie to icing ratio if you’re using it. At that thickness you’ll get about 30 cookies.

What is this recipe in grams and not cups?

The short answer is accuracy! It is far easier, more accurate and you get more consistency results when you measure ingredients by weight, especially in dessert and bread baking! I wrote all about this in my post about using digital kitchen scales!

Tried this recipe and loved it? Awesome! Drop me a comment below and tell me about it! Can’t wait to hear how it turned out for you! You can also keep up to date with me during the week by joining me on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest!