Christmas Cookies, easy to make with a base of shortcrust pastry and fondant covering. You can have fun making the fondant at home with simple ingredients, but you can also easily buy it ready-made.
Fortunately, you can now find fondant easily even in big supermarkets, already colored. Personally, I make it at home and color it each time with paste colors, which provide more vibrant colors. If you don’t have time and still want to enjoy a nice afternoon decorating Christmas cookies to get into the festive spirit, buy it ready-made.
You’ll need themed cookie cutters to make these cookies, but as you can see from Santa’s face, if you don’t have Christmas molds, don’t give up on the project. You can make them with a simple heart-shaped cookie cutter.
In this recipe, I’m only giving you a decorative idea, but the important thing is to understand how to assemble them. For the base, we use a specific shortcrust pastry for decorated cookies that doesn’t contain baking powder to prevent them from rising in the oven. We use all colored fondant and your imagination to decorate them.
Fondant covering remains unchanged for a long time and is edible for up to a year, so you can prepare them in advance and use them during the festive days.
During this period, you can prepare many tasty homemade things, and with fondant, you can make many homemade desserts special as you can see in the following recipes
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Medium
- Preparation time: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
- Portions: 40 cookies
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Energy 163.15 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 23.85 (g) of which sugars 13.57 (g)
- Proteins 1.67 (g)
- Fat 7.09 (g) of which saturated 3.52 (g)of which unsaturated 1.99 (g)
- Fibers 0.28 (g)
- Sodium 12.74 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 39 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
I provide the ingredients for making shortcrust pastry because you can buy ready-made and colored fondant, but I’ll give you the link to the recipe to easily make it at home.
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 cup butter (cold)
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 pinch salt
- to taste vanilla extract
- 1.1 lbs fondant
- to taste food coloring
Tools
I recommend using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment to make the shortcrust pastry easier, but you can also knead it by hand.
You’ll need themed Christmas cookie cutters, but even simple heart-shaped ones will do.
- 1 Stand Mixer Howork
- 1 Cookie Cutters
- 1 Cookie Cutters
Preparation
The first step is to prepare the shortcrust pastry with which we will make the cookies for decoration.
If you decide to knead by hand, place the flour in a mound on a work surface, put the powdered sugar, eggs, salt, and vanilla extract in the center, and stir with a fork. Then take the butter block between your fingers to soften it slightly and add it to the rest of the ingredients. Start kneading until you get a soft, compact dough that is not sticky.
You can replace these steps by putting all the ingredients in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and adding butter gradually, mix at medium speed until the shortcrust pastry dough forms.
The obtained shortcrust pastry can be used immediately for your decorated cookies or kept in the refrigerator covered with plastic wrap.
To make your decorated cookies, roll out a sheet about 1/8 inch thick and cut them with themed Christmas cookie cutters using the shapes you like the most. Mine are just a decoration idea; I remind you that heart molds also work well for making Santa’s face.
Place the cookies made with shortcrust pastry on baking sheets covered with parchment paper and bake at 350°F for 10 minutes until golden, no more than 12 minutes, or they’ll be hard when they should be crumbly.
Let the cookies cool so you can decorate them with fondant. To attach the fondant to your decorated cookies, I recommend using a bit of jam or honey, just a very thin layer. To do this and avoid applying too much honey, soften the honey in the microwave.
NOTES
These Christmas cookies will be a great gift idea because, besides being delicious, you will have made them by hand, dedicating your time to them, which is the most precious gift.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use gluten-free flour?
Yes, you can use a gluten-free shortcrust base, as long as it doesn’t contain baking powder because the cookies should not rise in the oven to be better decorated.
Does fondant contain gluten?
Always check the ingredients on the label, but usually, as you see from my recipe, fondant does not contain gluten because it is made from powdered sugar, which contains cornstarch.
