What's Inside:

• 40 Best Holiday Cookie Recipes
• Tips for Shipping Cookies
• Cookie Decorating Essentials
• These 3 ingredients are my secret to making the best holiday cookies

​

🎁 Happy Holiday Season, Baking Buddy! 🎁

​
Maybe you've started watching Christmas movies every night or playing festive music on your daily drive. Perhaps your home is adorned with sparkling lights and a beautifully decorated tree, or you're ahead of the curve with all your gifts wrapped and ready to go!

Or mayyybe you haven't done any of it yet—and that's perfectly fine, too.

However you’re celebrating the holidays, I hope you'll find time to bake cookies this year. There’s something magical about creating sweet, edible memories during the holiday season.

🍪 40 BEST Christmas Cookie Recipes

From timeless classics to creative twists, this collection has something for everyone. A few standouts:

• ​Mint Chocolate Cheesecake Cookies: Classic mint chocolate cookies filled with mint cheesecake and topped with mint chocolate chips - chewy, creamy, delicious.
• ​Chocolate Crinkle Cookies: Crunchy on the outside and fudgy on the inside. Powdered sugar-dusted cookies not only look gorgeous, but they taste incredible, too!
• ​Linzer Cookies: Delicate buttery cookies filled with your favorite jam and dusted with powdered sugar make for a gorgeously presented and decadent treat.
• ​Peppermint Butter Cookie Pinwheels: Tender, peppermint-infused butter cookie sandwiches are filled with buttercream and coated with crushed peppermint candies.
• ​Chocolate-Dipped Shortbread Cookies: Classic, buttery shortbread cookies are dipped in dark chocolate and are the ultimate treat. One bite and these cookies melt in your mouth!

​View the full holiday cookie roundup here!​

📦 How to Ship Cookies This Holiday Season

Cookie gifting is one of my favorite parts of the holiday season. Learn how to package and ship cookies perfectly to avoid breakage, plus a list of my favorite cookies that will survive shipment!​

Ensure your treats arrive fresh and intact with these tips:

1. Choose sturdy cookies: Think shortbread, biscotti, or gingerbread. Avoid delicate or overly soft varieties.
2. Wrap with care: Use parchment, cupcake liners, or wax paper between cookies and bubble wrap for cushioning.
3. Pack snugly: Fill any gaps in the box with crumpled paper to prevent shifting.

Bonus Tip: Include a note with storage instructions to keep your cookies at their best!

🎨 Decorating Cookies Made Simple

Whether you’re crafting gingerbread masterpieces or colorful sugar cookies, here’s are the basic recipes for decorating and designing cookies:

For Cut-Out Sugar Cookies:

• ​Royal Icing: Perfect for intricate details and glossy finishes​.
• ​Cookie Decorating Buttercream Icing: Ideal for soft, colorful swirls and easy piping. Soft-sets after a few hours.

For Cut-Out Gingerbread Cookies:

Use candies like gumdrops, crushed peppermints, mini M&Ms, or sprinkles for decorating alongside icing to add texture and dimension.

Pro Tip: Use gel food coloring for vibrant hues without altering the icing’s consistency.

🎓 Learn: Mastering Baking Basics

Take the guesswork out of baking with my Mastering Baking Basics Course. Learn how to achieve consistently amazing results, whether you’re perfecting sugar cookies or baking bread for Christmas dinner.

​Sign up now and make this holiday season your most delicious yet!​

✨ INGREDIENT SPOTLIGHT 🥣

These three ingredients make the BEST homemade cookies!

European Butter: Take your holiday cookies to the next level. Consider swapping your usual butter for Kerrygold Irish Butter. Here’s why:

• Higher Fat Content: European butter typically contains 82–85% butterfat, compared to the 80% found in standard US butter. This higher fat content creates a richer flavor and contributes to a tender, melt-in-your-mouth texture in your cookies.
• Lower Water Content: Less water means less steam during baking, leading to cookies with a more pronounced buttery taste and a better structure.
• Creamy Texture: The churning process gives European butter a smooth, luxurious consistency, perfect for achieving a silky cookie dough.

Pro Tips:

🍪 European butter softens faster, so keep an eye on it if you're leaving it out to come to room temperature.

🍪 Try it in recipes like sugar cookies or shortbread, where the butter flavor really shines!

Quality Vanilla: A high quality vanilla - bean, extract, or paste, will take any plain cookie to a whole new level. I wish I was getting paid to tell you this, but I'm not. I'm just a genuine fan of Blue Cattle Truck Mexican Vanilla.

Their traditional vanilla extract adds the perfect vanilla flavor to my baked goods with less than 10% alcohol than regular extracts and no artificial ingredients.

Baking Salt: Diamond Crystal came out with a brand new baking salt this year that is a finer cut of kosher salt and dissolves 2-3x faster than regular iodized salt and blend better into doughs and batter.

💎 Did you know? Salt plays a critical role in baking, including balancing flavors, especially sweetness. It impacts the consistency of doughs and plays a major role in preserving your baking goods, keeping them fresher longer.

🌟 One last thing... Did our recipes find their way onto your Thanksgiving dessert table?

We'd love it if you could leave a starred review for the recipe you made so that others can find it, too!

☕🧣 Happy baking and warm holiday wishes!

Stephanie Gonzalez

This email contains some affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links at no additional cost to you. Not all links are affiliate links.