The time has almost come to start baking Christmas Cookies to give as gifts to friends and family. Indeed, I think there’s no gift more appreciated than homemade Christmas cookies packaged in beautiful colorful boxes.
With some simple shortcrust pastry, colorful sprinkles, and dark chocolate, you can make lots of Christmas Cookies to give to everyone and maybe even decorate your Christmas tree.
Have you ever thought about decorating the tree with cookies you made yourself? It’s simple: before baking, make a hole in each cookie with a wooden skewer, and once baked and cooled, thread a colorful ribbon through the hole, and voilà.
You can make the Christmas Cookies to give as gifts with your children to involve them in this beloved holiday, and you can also make them with almond shortcrust pastry or use the quantities and ingredients I provide below to make half of them white and half chocolate.
There are many shapes to use, even gingerbread men are perfect for shaping Christmas cookies.
If you are looking for Christmas desserts in addition to cookies, I leave you with some perfect recipes for both Christmas Eve and Christmas lunch, and then right after the photo, as always, let’s discover how to prepare the Christmas Cookies!!
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Very inexpensive
- Rest time: 1 Hour
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 30
- Cooking methods: Oven, Electric oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients for the Christmas Cookies to Give as Gifts
- 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 egg yolks (medium)
- 1 egg (medium)
- 5.3 oz butter
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest (grated)
- 1 packet baking powder
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 pod vanilla
- 1 pinch salt
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- 4.2 oz butter
- 2 egg yolks
- Half packet baking powder
- to taste dark chocolate
- to taste sprinkles (colored or sugar pearls)
Tools
- Bowl
- Cookie cutters Christmas theme: tree, candy cane, or Santa's boot
- Parchment paper
- Baking sheet standard size
- Rolling pin
How to Prepare Christmas Cookies to Give as Gifts
To prepare the Christmas Cookies to give as gifts, prepare the shortcrust pastry, with powdered sugar being essential for this recipe.
You’ll see that the cookies melt in your mouth and are perfect and smooth in appearance.
Then sift the flour with the baking powder and the pinch of salt and place it in a large bowl with the cold butter in pieces.
Add the yolks and the egg, the seeds from the vanilla pod (or vanilla extract or even the vial) and the sugar.
Start kneading with your hands, then add the lemon zest, and once you have a rather sandy mixture, turn it out onto the work surface.
Knead it very briefly to form a smooth and compact ball, wrap it in plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator to rest for at least 1 hour.
Prepare the chocolate shortcrust pastry in the same way.
Once the shortcrust pastry has rested in the refrigerator, take it out, dust the work surface with a little flour and roll out the pastry to a thin sheet 1/8 or 1/6 inch thick.
To avoid adding too much flour, I cover it with parchment paper so it rolls well without sticking.
With the available cookie cutters, cut out many cookies of different shapes, line a baking tray with parchment paper, and arrange the cookies as you cut them out using a spatula.
Decorate them to your liking with colored sprinkles or sugar pearls, and if you want to hang them on your Christmas tree, now is the time to make the hole at the top with a wooden skewer by pressing gently.
Preheat the oven to 356°F (180°C) in static mode, place the tray with the cookies in the middle rack of the oven, and bake for 12/15 minutes, always checking the degree of browning.
The Christmas Cookies to give as gifts should not darken.
Take them out of the oven, let them cool on a wire rack, and in the meantime, melt the chocolate in a bain-marie.
With a kitchen brush decorate as many cookies as you want halfway with dark chocolate.
If you want, you can use white chocolate.
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How to Store the Christmas Cookies to Give as Gifts
Christmas cookies can be stored in a tin box for 10 days.
The raw shortcrust pastry can be stored in the refrigerator well covered with plastic wrap for 2 days.
Other Recipes
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