Made with all simple ingredients, these Frosted Christmas Cookies make the perfect sweet treat to add to your holiday baking lineup. You’re going to love these pillowy soft cookies because not only are delicious, but they are also super festive and 100% homemade!

A closer photo of Frosted Christmas Cookies

Frosted Christmas Sugar Cookies

During Christmas season, frosted sugar cookies are always a crowd pleaser! This recipe makes the best Christmas cookie, hands-down! They are easy to bake and easy to decorate and are perfect for the little ones to help with. You’ll add food coloring to a rich and decadent butter cream frosting to make funs and festive colors the kids will adore. Just don’t forget the sprinkles.

One of the great things about this recipe is they start with a delicious basic Sugar Cookie Dough Recipe, that you can use to make several different awesome cookies with, like these Hidden Kiss Cookies, sweet little Thumbprint Cookies and melt-in-your-mouth Sprinkle Cookies. Because this recipe makes 6 dozen cookies, you could even divide it up and make a few of each type of cookie.

💓 Why We Love This Recipe

Very easy recipe using simple ingredients that will make this holiday season baking a breeze!
Perfect cookies for a holiday cookie tray, your next cookie exchange, gift giving for just for holiday snacking!
Fun for the whole family to help make! Use a variety of sprinkles and colors of frosting.

🥄 Recommended Tools

Hand mixer (or stand mixer)
Cookie sheet
Large bowl
Medium-sized bowls for frosting
Cooling rack
Measuring cup
Measuring spoons

🛒 What’s Need to Make Frosted Cookies

For the Sugar Cookie Dough

Butter-softened
Shortening
Sugar
Eggs
Vanilla extract
Flour
Instant Vanilla pudding mix
Baking powder
Salt

For the Easy Sugar Cookie Frosting

Unsalted butter – softened
Vanilla extract
Heavy cream
Salt
Powdered sugar
Holiday sprinkles (or colored sugar crystals)
Gel food coloring

How to Make Frosted Holiday Sugar Cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Blend Wet Ingredients

wet ingredients in clear bowl with mixer

Cream together butter, shortening, and sugar with an electric mixer.
Add in eggs, vanilla, and instant pudding mix. Continue mixing until thoroughly incorporated.

Add Dry Ingredients

In a separate bowl stir together flour, baking powder and salt.
Add the all purpose flour mixture to the room temperature butter mixture a little at a time, on low speed, mixing between additions until all the flour is incorporated.

Bake the Cookies

Using a dough scoop or spoon scoop drop by tablespoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheet, about 2 inches apart.
Bake cookies for 12-15 minutes or until set and lightly golden brown around the edges.
Remove the baked cookies from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Make the Frosting

Mix the Ingredients

With an electric mixer, beat butter until light and fluffy. Add in powdered sugar and heavy cream a little at a time alternating and mixing between additions.

Continue adding and mixing until all the powdered sugar and cream has been added or until the frosting reaches the right consistency. Add in vanilla and salt and mix until well incorporated.

Process of making Frosted Christmas Cookies is to mix the butter, flour and sugar

Add Coloring

Add food coloring to the white frosting if desired and mix, add additional food coloring until desired color is reached. You can also separate the frosting into smaller bowls to make different colors of frosting if you want more than one color of sugar cookie icing.

Melted butter and ready to bake Frosted Christmas Cookies

Frost the Cookies

Once the cookies have completely cooled, frost the top of each cookie and add the festive sprinkles.

Made with all simple ingredients, these Frosted Christmas Cookies make the perfect sweet treat to add to your holiday baking lineup. You’re going to love these pillowy soft cookies because not only are delicious, but they are also super festive and 100% homemade!

How Do I Store These Cookies?

For best results, frosted cookies should be stored in the fridge in an airtight container. To prevent the frosting from sticking to other cookies, make sure you allow the frosting to dry really well, then place them in the container in a single layer with a piece of wax paper between the layers.

You can also freeze these cookies by double wrapping then in plastic wrap them slipping them into a freezer bag. To thaw, unwrap the cookies and place them on the counter until thawed.

Frosted Christmas Cookies on small and large serving plates with scattered spinkles on the sides

Variations and Add-ins

Peppermint Sugar Cookies: To give these cookies a peppermint twist, add just a little bit of mint extract into the dough. Then for an extra special touch, sprinkle the top of the frosting with crushed candy canes.

Maple Nut Cookies: If you want to make these for a fall occasion, maple nut cookies would be awesome. Add1/2 tablespoon maple syrup to cookie dough and a little maple extract to the frosting/ On top of the frosting, add some crushed pecans!

Almond Cookies: Replace the vanilla extract with some almond extract and add some almond slivers to the top of the frosting.

Lemon Zest Cookies: Who doesn’t lemon? Add some fresh lemon zest to the cookies and some lemon extract to frosting! They will be a huge hit!

Tips for Making the Best Sugar Cookies

Always whisk or sift dry ingredients: To prevent lumpy, unevenly baked cookies makes sure you give all the dry ingredients a good whisk, breaking up any clumps of flour. This ensure that the dough will be smooth and that the cookies will bake up soft and fluffy.

Scrape the bowl: Once you have mixed the wet and dry ingredients, take a rubber spatula and scrape the bottom of the bowl to make sure there are no pockets of dry ingredients hiding out down there.

Use room temperature eggs and butter: If you use cold butter and eggs, the cookie will end up hard. You don’t want melted butter, because the dough will spread out and make your cookie flat. You do want to soft enough to mix in well with the other ingredients without separating. I usually recommend taking the eggs and butter out of the fridge about one hour before baking.

Watch the time: It’s super easy to walk away and forget you have them in the oven so if you have a cooking timer, you may want to set it. When it comes to the baking time, ovens can vary. They should take about 12 minutes or so to bake but start checking them for doneness between 8-10 minutes. They are done when the edges are slightly brown, and the center of the cookies look nice and dry.

Let the rest: Always allow fresh out of the oven cookies time to cook for just a few minutes on the cookie sheet before you move them. When cookies are warm, they are really delicate. If you move them too soon, they will either break apart or deflate and fall flat. Give the soft sugar cookies about 5-10 minutes before you transfer them to a wire rack.