Easy Holiday Cookies that are a joy to make

I love baking cookies! Today I’m showing you how I made these Simple Holiday Cookies. It’s a happy marriage of my two favorite things in this world – typography, and baking.

There is nothing that makes me happier than a kitchen with these joy cookies baking in the oven.

Holiday Cookies Made Easy:

1. Take short cuts: I’m using a store-bought Pillsbury Sugar Cookie mix today- to make things easy. Everything is pre measured and makes baking quick. Mix your Sugar Cookie Mix according to the instructions on the box. Preheat your oven to 350F or the temperature suggested for your recipe.

2. Use Parchment paper to prevent the dough from sticking: This is a soft dough, so I let it chill in the fridge for a bit. And then just to make sure the cookies wont stick to my counter, I rolled it between two wax paper/ or parchment sheets. Divide the dough into thirds and roll out to about 1/4inch thickness.

3. Wiggle and Lift your Cookie Cutters: Now the fun begins! Using the alphabet cookie cutters from this Wilton 101 Piece Cookie Cutter Set, press the J O and Y cookie cutters into the rolled out cookie dough. Don’t press down too hard, instread give a firm wiggle and lift.

4. Use an Offset Spatula to lift your cookies: Carefully lift out the letter cookies using an offset spatula and move them onto a greased cookie dough.

5. Don’t over bake your cookies! Place the cookies in the oven to bake. I like to watch my first batch of cookies really closely. The box might say 8 mins, but when you are using a darker non stick cookie sheet, it takes lesser time. These cookies took just under 6 minutes to bake.

Now let the cookies cool. While the first batch of cooke is cool, cut out the rest of the cookies from the dough. J O Y, J O Y over and over again.

And repeat the baking process.

My Holiday Cookies Decorating Hack:

Once all of the cookies are cooled, place some Chocolate frosting in a piping bag with a narrow tip. I’m using Wilton’s no 3 tip here, but I’ve heard grand things about the No.1 tip as well. Go ahead and pipe an outline of frosting to outline each cookie.

My tip for piping careful outlines- have  your piping tip slightly above the cookie and let the piped frosting fall down onto the cookie naturally by slowly moving your wrist along the cookie shape. Did that make sense?

How to melt Store bought Frosting: Microwave the rest of the frosting for about 8-10 seconds. There is only half a container of frosting remaining so you don’t need more than 10 secs. The frosting should be runny like shown below.

Carefully spoon the liquid frosting to fill the piped area of the cookies. This looks difficult but really is simple and makes decorating these cookies a breeze.

If you don’t like microwaving your frosting, you can instead use melted (but cooled to the touch) chocolate. Oh yum. I wish I had used that instead now 🙂

If the frosting cools a bit, use a toothpick to nudge the frosting around. Some of the best decorating tools are the ones you likely already have at home 😉

Repeat the process with all of the letters and have fun while doing so.

ALL DONE

Ta-Da! These decorated Holiday Cookies turned out so cute! I also love making these Christmas Tree Cookies with the kids.

The whole family gets together to make and share holiday treats and these are memories I want to make and cherish. Simple joys in life are always the most treasured ones too.

Now if you look closely, you will see these Holiday Cookies are not all perfect. But each one of them will make you smile nonetheless. These were meant to be treats for our friends but my little helpers sunk their teeth in them. The first few batches of cookies are always for the kids!