Christmas Butter Cookies

5 from 3 votes

Make the best Christmas butter cookies with this easy homemade butter cookie recipe! Rich, tender, and perfect for holiday gifting.

Prep Time10

Cook Time10

Total Time20

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Christmas Butter Cookies

Servings: servings

Calories: 70kcal

Preheat your oven to 375ºF and line two baking trays with parchment paper.
Add the sugar, butter, and salt to a bowl and cream them together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. You want the butter and sugar mix to be almost white so beat for about 5 minutes.
½ cup granulated sugar, 10 tablespoon butter, ¼ teaspoon salt
Add the egg, milk, and vanilla and stir well to combine.
1 egg, 1 tablespoon milk, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Add ½ cup of cake flour and stir gently. Add another ½ cup of cake flour and stir again. Add the final ⅔ cup of cake flour and mix into a thick, sticky batter. Adding the flour in parts ensures that the cookie dough is not over-mixed and stays nice and soft.
1 ⅔ cups cake flour
Scoop the cookie dough into a large piping bag fitted with a large star tip. Pipe the cookies onto the parchment-lined trays. You can pipe the cookies into any shape you’d like. Spirals/rosettes are the most classic shape! No matter what shape you choose, try to keep the cookies about 2” in size.
Bake the cookies for 10 minutes. The edges will be slightly golden brown but the cookies will still be a little pale in the center.
Let the cookies cool on the tray for 5 minutes then move to a cooling rack.

Add some festive flair: You can sprinkle the cookies with holiday sprinkles before baking for an easy, pretty decoration.
Make them decadent: You can also dip the cooled cookie into melted chocolate and then add festive sprinkles on the chocolate side of the cookie.
Soften the dough: If the cookie dough is too stiff to pipe, add up to ¼ cup milk to soften it.
Skip greasing the baking sheets: Don’t grease the baking trays with butter or non-stick cooking spray as the cookies will absorb that excess fat while baking which can create unnecessary spreading.
Use real butter: Margarine just won't work when you're making butter cookies!