😍❤️🎉 Soft Frosted Christmas Cookies are topped with cream cheese frosting and loaded with sprinkles! They’re easy, no-roll cookies that everyone goes crazy for!
Frosted Christmas Sugar Cookies
Who can resist sprinkles cookies around the holidays? I sure can’t. I especially can’t resist them when they’re frosted with cream cheese frosting. Here’s why these are the best sugar cookie recipe for the holidays:
- These Christmas cookies with icing and sprinkles are easy, and there’s no rolling or cutting out involved. Major time savers, which is so nice when we’re all so busy around the holidays.
- The cookies are super soft with a buttery buttery flavor, slightly crisp edges, and tender, pillowy centers. The dough base is adapted from my cranberry and white chocolate chip cookies. I love it because the cookies just melt in your mouth. They remind me of Lofthouse or bakery soft frosted cookies, but way better.
- I opted for cream cheese frosting because, in my book, it’s at the top of the frosting food chain. You’ll likely have a little extra, but that’s what spoons are for. Or you can keep it for weeks in the fridge for your next baking project.
Looking for more festive cookie recipes?
Try my Christmas cut out sugar cookies, snowflake linzer cookies, snowball cookies, and chocolate peppermint kiss cookies, too!
Ingredients You’ll Need
To make the soft frosted Christmas sugar cookies, you’ll need:
- Unsalted butter
- Sugars – Granulated sugar and light brown sugar
- Egg
- Heavy cream
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Cream cheese frosting – Combine cream cheese, unsalted butter, confectioners’ sugar, salt, and then finish with sprinkles. It’s important that you use brick-style cream cheese and not the whipped kind in a tub. Also, make sure the cream cheese has been softened to room temperature first. If you skip this, the frosting won’t whip up properly
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Frosted Christmas Cookies
These Christmas cookies with frosting come together much like any other cookie recipe. Here’s an overview of the baking process:
- Use a stand mixer or hand mixer to cream together the butter and sugars, then add the egg, vanilla, and cream.
- Mix in the dry ingredients, then scoop the dough into balls.
- Chill the cookie dough for at least 3 hours. The dough is very soft and MUST be chilled before baking. There are two tablespoons of cream in the dough, which makes the cookies so creamy but also makes for a very soft dough. Feel free to use cookie cutters like Christmas trees, stars, and candy canes to make fun shapes.
- Once chilled, bake cookies on a lined baking sheet until the edges have set and the tops are just set, even if slightly undercooked and glossy in the center.
- Let the holiday sugar cookies cool completely before topping with frosting! Use a piping bag, or just spoon it on.
Additional frosting options to try
Personally, I think the cream cheese frosting I’ve shared in the recipe card below is the BEST Christmas cookie frosting. However, you can easily use one of the following flavors as the Christmas cookie frosting: Vanilla Frosting, Chocolate Frosting, Buttercream Frosting, or Peanut Butter Frosting. You could also try using royal icing, using a Wilton piping tip to pipe around the edges and then flooding the center.
Soft Frosted Christmas Cookies
Equipment
- 1 Stand Mixer Fitted with a Paddle Attachment
- 1 Two Tablespoon Cookie Scoop
- 1 Cookie Sheet
Ingredients
Cookies
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened (1 stick)
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 large egg
- 2 tablespoons cream or half-and-half
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste
Frosting
- 6 ounces cream cheese, softened (lite okay)
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
- ¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste
- sprinkles, to taste (I used these
Instructions
For the Cookies:
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or large bowl and electric mixer), add the butter, sugars, and beat on medium-high speed until creamed and well combined, about 3 to 4 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the egg, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until well combined, about 2 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the cream, and beat on medium-high speed until well combined, about 1 minute. The batter may look a little ‘grainy’ and almost as if it’s separated, this is okay.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flour, baking soda, salt, and beat on low speed until just combined, about 1 minute.
- Using a 2-tablespoon cookie scoop or your hands, form approximately 15 equal-sized mounds of dough. The dough is very soft and I find it easiest to use a cookie scoop. Place mounds on a large plate or tray, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, up to 5 days. Do not bake with unchilled dough because cookies will bake thinner, flatter, and be more prone to spreading. After chilling, flatten each mound about half the original height.
- Preheat oven to 350F, line a baking sheet with a Silpat or spray with cooking spray. Place dough mounds on baking sheet, spaced at least 2 inches apart (I bake 8 cookies per sheet).
- Bake for about 8 minutes or until edges have set and tops are just set, even if slightly undercooked and glossy in the center; don’t overbake. Cookies firm up as they cool.
- Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet completely before frosting. I let them cool on the baking sheet and don’t use a rack. Make sure they’re completely cooled before frosting them or the frosting will melt.
For the Frosting:
- To a large bowl (or to the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment) add the cream cheese, butter, and beat with an electric mixer on high-speedy until fluffy, about 2 minutes.
- Add the confectioners’ sugar, salt, and beat until smooth and incorporated, about 2 minutes.
- Add about 2 to 3 tablespoons of frosting to each cookie, and spread into a smooth, flat layer using a knife, keeping a bare 1/4-inch perimeter.
- Add sprinkles to each cookie, to taste. I use a variety of red and green flat sprinkles, glitter, non-pareils (little balls), etc.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
©averiecooks.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited.
More Christmas Cookie Recipes:
Classic Jam Thumbprint Cookies — These easy thumbprint cookies are tender, buttery, and the 3 different types of jam turns into chewy little jewels that make these nostalgic family favorite cookies!
Classic Chewy Gingerbread Cookies — Soft and chewy cut-out gingerbread cookies filled with plenty of ginger and warming spices!
Candy Cane Blossom Sugar Cookies — Soft, chewy, and so easy! The sprinkles make them totally irresistible! Santa’s going to love these!
Softbatch No-Roll Holiday Cookies— These tender, buttery holiday cookies use a no-roll dough with the sprinkles baked right in so you don’t even have to decorate them!
Soft & Chewy Molasses Gingerdoodles— These soft molasses cookies taste like a cross between chewy gingerbread cookies and crinkly snickerdoodles. An unbeatable holiday cookie recipe!
Soft and Chewy M&M’s Chocolate Chip Cookies – If you’re looking for a new M&M cookie recipe, this is THE ONE! Soft, buttery, and irresistible!
Santa’s Kitchen Sink Cookies — Santa and everyone else won’t be able to resist these AMAZING cookies loaded with everything but the kitchen sink! EASY, festive, salty-sweet treats with a FUN ingredients list!
Hi! Love the recipe, picked up dark brown sugar instead of light brown, will that mess up the cookies? Thanks!
The cookies will just be darker in color with a more caramely flavor, that is my hunch but they will still ‘work’.
Could you chill the dough first, then scoop them into the individual cookie pieces? Or is it possible to freeze the dough?
I don’t recommend bowl chilling because it will be impossible once it’s sufficiently chilled to scoop it out. You can freeze the dough once it’s been formed into mounds. See last step of directions for more info.
Oh my! I think I just got a toothache looking at these :) These would go so well with my coffee right now as opposed to my healthy yogurt I’m actually having!
Cookies always go better than yogurt with just about anything I think. Sad but true :)
All those Christmas sprinkles!!! I’m in love! Also, best cookies ever!
I always wondered how to get cookies to have that wonderful soft texture. Cream! Isn’t it just the answer to all things? These look lovely.
I know. Darn, I wish steamed broccoli was the answer to everything but it’s usually butter, sugar, or cream :)
I can’t wait to try these. I am not one to roll out sugar cookies, so these are perfect. I’m going to use my favorite cinnamon coffee creamer in place of the heavy cream. Thanks for the recipe!
Averie,
I agree about the cream cheese frosting. These look delish – pinned.
Annamaria
Thanks for pinning!
I love cream cheese frosting too. My favourite is chocolate……it’s so good I used to make double so I had some left for decorating after licking the bowl!
Oooo these look so soft and fun!
I’m in the middle of baking my Christmas cookies and can’t wait to eat them.
They just make Christmas that little bit more delicious.
Averie, these cookies look perfect for Christmas! Can I freeze them with the frosting on?
I think for ‘optimal’ results, you should frost them after you defrost. Me personally…if I was wanting to just make a whole bunch in a batch and bang out a ton, I’d probably frost then freeze. But don’t put the sprinkles on until after you defrost because they will run and bleed upon thawing and look horrible!
Such a great holiday classic! I’m going to have to get in the kitchen with my little man this weekend and make some of these!
Paige
https://thehappyflammily.com
The day after Thanksgiving and you’ve posted the perfect holiday cookie! Nicely done. I can just make these and relax for the rest of December!
I’ve just cleaned up all my Pinterest recipe files and I wanted to say that you were one of only two bloggers I could rely on for recipes that were not ‘pinched’ from someone else. I look forward to testing some of your recipes.
Wow, that’s quite an honor, thank you for ‘saving’ me! Let me know what you make and how it goes!
So festive — and cream cheese frosting sounds great on sugar cookies. I wasn’t expecting that when I first saw the photo!
That frosting was soooo good on these cookies! Wish I was having one right now!
Averie these are so beautiful. Thank you for sharing.