The Best Classic Christmas Cookies
I love making cookies with royal icing every holiday season. These incredible classic Christmas Cookies are perfect for our Christmas party!
I have made many classic Christmas cookies in my day, but these might be my favorite. Let me show you how I made them!
Classic Christmas Cookies
I have always collected English Advertising Jars. Last year, I saw a video on the Iron Orchid Designs website, and I was inspired to use their stamps to make these vintage-style Classic Christmas cookies.
Today, I joined thirteen other bloggers who shared their favorite homemade cookie recipes. Be sure to scroll to the bottom to see these fantastic cookies.
English Advertising Pots are one of my favorite things to collect. It is hard to believe that the beautiful jars were used only once and pitched into the rubbish bin.
Thankfully, someone unearthed one, and the love affair with English Advertising Jars was born. I love them so much and am so grateful for the companies who were so thoughtful in using such beautiful packaging for their products!
Today, I am sharing these classic Christmas cookies I made, which feature some of the art from these amazing English Advertising pots.
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Iron Orchid Designs
I love Iron Orchid Designs. You all know how much I love to craft, and I am always looking for new ideas that look amazing and are not hard to do. Iron Orchid Designs has the most incredible products for crafts and DIYs. Their designs are so creative. They are a company of wonderful people, and their products will easily help you discover amazing new DIYs and crafts.
Going to the IOD website, you will find “DIY tools and tutorials to inspire your creative soul.” They have decor moulds, decor stamps, and decor transfers to make fabulous home items.
Today I get to share how I used their decor stamps to decorate my homemade classic Christmas cookies.
I used the Merry and Bright IOD Decor Stamp.
Where can you buy Iron Orchid Designs products? You can find the MERRY & BRIGHT IOD Crockery stamp here.
When I saw that Iron Orchid Designs Christmas stamps resembled the writing on my beloved English advertising pots, I was convinced I could make these classic Christmas cookies resemble the pots.
I think they turned out beautifully.
I look for a few new Christmas cookie recipes each year. Some have been keepers, and some have made a one-time appearance.
I always make my classic Christmas cookies. They are traditional sugar cookies with royal icing. I decorate them differently each year, but the recipe is the same. I have made them every year for … well, many years.
This year I used Measure for Measure gluten-free flour and they turned out perfectly!
If you are gluten-free, you can still have these amazing cookies!
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Tips to Make These Classic Christmas Cookies
- one – make the sugar cookie dough
- two – roll out the dough and cut it with cookie cutters. I used cookie cutters shaped like plaques and frames for this year’s cookies.
- three – bake the cookies
- four – while the cookies are cooling, make the royal icing
- five – pipe the edge of the cookies to create an outline
- six – pipe the “flood” frosting inside the outline to cover the top of the cookie
- seven – pipe the “flood” frosting inside the outline to cover the top of the cookie.
- eight – Wait for the icing to harden (overnight) before you stamp the cookies.
- nine – Add Wilton-colored gel to the back of a glass baking pan. Roll the gel color out using a brayer to distribute it evenly. Press the stamp into the gel color until evenly coated, and then press onto the dried royal icing. You can also roll the brayer directly onto the stamp if necessary.
Gently press the stamp on top of the royal icing. Don’t press too hard; the icing will stick to the stamp.
Classic Christmas Cookie Recipes
Below is my sugar cookie recipe, which I have used many times. The Royal Icing recipe with meringue powder is great, too.
The Best Sugar Cookies
This sugar cookie recipe is my go-to recipe every time. It's almost flawless!
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (or gluten free 1 to 1 or measure to measure flour)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- 1 tablespoons milk
- 1 TBL lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
Mix together flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar; add dry ingredients, and mix until incorporated.
With the mixer running, add egg, milk, lemon, and vanilla; mix until incorporated. Transfer dough to a work surface. Shape into 2 discs, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with nonstick baking mats or parchment paper; set aside.
On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes, and transfer to prepared baking sheets, leaving an inch in between. Leftover dough can be rolled and cut once more. Bake until lightly golden, about 10 minutes; do not allow to brown. Transfer to wire racks to cool.
Decorate with Royal Icing.
Notes
I made this recipe with measure to measure gluten-free flour. The Xantham gum is included in the flour and the cookies came out perfectly.
Royal Icing
Royal icing is used for both an outline and frosting the cookie's surface
Ingredients
- 4 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted
- 3 TBL meringue powewder (NOT plain egg white powder)
- 9-10 TBL room temperature water
- optional: gel food coloring
Instructions
- Pour confectioner's sugar, meringue powder, and 9 TBL of water into the bowl. Use a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat together the icing ingredients at high speed for two minutes.
- The trick to royal icing is its thickness. For the outline icing, when you drag a knife through the icing, the knife line should disappear in 8 seconds. If it's too thick, add 1 TBL of water until the knife drag is 8 seconds. For the flood icing (inside the outline) the knife drag time is 12-15 seconds.
- Note: royal icing will thicken the longer you beat it. If it gets too thick add water, if it gets too thin, add confectioner's sugar.
- If you are adding color to your icing, you can divide the batch into smaller bowls and add gel color to each bowl.
- Icing usually takes around four to six hours to completely dry.
Look at These Cookies!
What I love about these recipes is that they make gorgeous cookies that taste amazing too!
That’s a double bonus!
I think this year’s version might be my favorite ever made.
Santa will be thrilled to find one of these beauties waiting for him on Christmas Eve. If you have a Christmas gathering, definitely give these a try. Their beauty is deceiving. They are easy to make, and your family and friends will be amazed at your baking talent!
More Amazing Christmas Cookie Recipes
14 Christmas Cookie Recipes
Classic Sugar Cookies For Christmas // My 100 Year Old Home
Christmas Cookie Hack // My Sweet Savannah
Mexican Christmas Cookies // Just Destiny
Salted Butterscotch Shortbread // Life Is Better At Home
Stained Glass Sugar Cookies // Paint Me Pink
Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Cookies // Maison de Cinq
The Yummiest Oreo Cookies and Cream Cookies // Twelve On Main
Hanging Mug Topper Cookies // Happy Happy Nester
Italian Christmas Cookies // Inspiration For Moms
Anzac Biscuit Cookies // Finding Lovely
How to Make Easy, Mild Gingerbread Cookies (no molasses!) // The DIY Mommy
The Best Ginger Molasses Cookies // Modern Glam
The Best Soft and Chewy Ginger Cookies // The Happy Housie
Orange Glazed Sugar Cookies // Sincerely, Marie
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Wow! These cookies are beautiful. They really do resemble the old advertising jars. Love them. I only have one marmalade jar so far but hope to get more jars in the future. Thanks for sharing this great idea for the cookies. Merry Christmas!
Really enjoyed this post, the cookies are lovely
Those cookies—— wow! They are the most beautiful cookies that I have ever seen!!! You are so clever and so talented.
Just stunning
These cookies are absolutely gorgeous. Love love love them.
I loved this so much that I ordered the stamp. Beautiful. Love the idea. I also loved your napkin chargers and made those. They turned out great. I took one of your palette knife workshops several years ago.
Thanks so much Janelle!
These are so pretty!
Thanks Tammy!
These cookies are so beautiful, Leslie!! Perfect for the holidays!
I love how these turned out. I am happy that you like them too!
I’d like a recipe for cookies that don’t change shape when baked so I can use a cookie press to engrave or write words ( indentations) that will last when baked.
Amazing again!!! You always inspire.
I can only imagine how excited you were when you found these to match your pots!
Thanks so very much Paula! A very happy moment!
Does the red gel food coloring take a long time to dry so it does not smudge? Love this idea!