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Officially kicking off the holiday season with these easy Easy Vanilla Bean Christmas Lights Cookies. Made with nutty brown butter, double the vanilla, and a little bit of chocolate. These cookies are soft, buttery, and perfectly sweet with the best vanilla flavor. They’re generously glazed with a sweet, thick, and creamy vanilla bean glaze. And decorated with sweet chocolate and delicious holiday M&M’s for truly some of the best sugar cookies around. The secret is all in the combination of brown butter and real vanilla beans, which keep these cookies incredibly flavorful. Fun to bake, delicious to eat. These make for a great homemade gift, and a festive addition to your holiday cookie box!
This is the year I’m focusing on ALL of the Christmas cookies. I have so many ideas and not enough days to share…picking the best cookies has been hard!
These were an easy choice though. They actually started out a little differently, but as soon as I had the idea to do Christmas lights, I was excited.
My goal this year is fun holiday desserts – but easy. Nothing too time-consuming and no big scary decorating projects. Just delicious, easy, cute, and extra festive. These cookies are all of those things.
My hang-up with basic sugar cookies is that they’re often flavorless and the frosting is even worse. They just taste like sugar, and I’m definitely not into that.
With these cookies, I wanted to add flavor with brown butter and real vanilla bean. The chocolate on top, just makes them even better.
Brown the butter, then let it cool off in the freezer a bit. Once it’s cooled (you only need 15 minutes), you can start mixing and baking.
Beat the butter with the sugar and vanilla bean powder. You’ll want to beat for at least a minute to really infuse the butter with the vanilla flavor. Next, add an egg and all the dry ingredients, then roll, cut, and bake. There’s absolutely nothing fancy here.
Whenever I make any kind of cut-out cookie, I always like to roll out the dough, cut the cookies, and then freeze the cut cookies on a baking sheet for a few minutes. This ensures that the cookies hold their shape. To cut my cookies, I used a simple circle cookie cutter and a holiday tree.
I LOVE slice-n-bake cookies, and you can easily slice-n-bake with this dough!
Just divide the dough in half as directed, then roll each piece of dough into a log and chill in the fridge until totally solid.
If you have an almost empty roll of wrapping paper around, cut the roll and fit it around each log, this will prevent the dough from forming a straight edge in the fridge!
And when ready to bake, simply slice-n-bake!
I kept the icing simple, since I wanted the color to remain white but still have a nice flavor. I added a small amount of maple syrup and lots of vanilla.
It’s simple, but with the chocolate on top, perfect!
When it comes to cookies, I try to keep the decorating as easy as can be, and this is EASY. I used melted chocolate to draw on the cords for the lights, then used mini holiday M&M’s for the lights.
Doesn’t get easier, but looks so cute once finished!
Asher wasn’t around when I made these, so I can’t wait to make these again soon with her. She’s going to love them! They’re the perfect Christmas cookie to make with kids!
Looking for other Christmas cookies? Here are my favorites:
Vanilla Ginger Shortbread Wreaths
Lastly, if you make these Easy Vanilla Bean Christmas Lights Cookies, be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love to hear from you guys and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
These are delicious! My icing turned a light brown color from the syrup and vanilla extract. How do you keep it white? Thank you!
Under the ingredients for the icing, what is Vanilla sugar? Can I find that by the regular sugar?
Made these for a cookie exchange. They were the most pretty ones there if I do say so myself. Delicious and easy to make with the kids! They came out so great!
Hi Brenda,
Thanks for making this recipe and your comment, so glad it was enjoyed! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! xx
These sound amazing! Could I use seeds from a vanilla bean instead of the powder? It’s really hard to find where I live, but I love the vanilla bean flavor compared to extract 🙂 Thank you!
Hi there! I haven’t ever tried that myself but that should work well! xT
Hi!
Does the icing harden on these? Will they stay fresh or start melting/smudging if I try to gift these in cookie bags?
Hi Dominique! The icing should harden 🙂 xT
I made these cookies for Christmas. Because I made your bourbon cupcakes as well, to lighten things up, I changed the icing on the cookies and used lemon juice instead of maple syrup. Either way, the cookies are absolutely delicious!!! I struggled a little with the decoration, couldn’t get the darn M+Ms to stand up. Next time I’ll use a pair of tweezers.
Hey Leigh,
Happy Monday!❄️ I am so glad to hear that this recipe was enjoyed, thanks a lot for making it! xx
LOVE these !! Amazing flavor and easy to make! They came out so cute !
Forgot to mention the brown butter and vanilla bean powder are game changers
Hey Dhalia,
I appreciate you making this recipe and sharing your review, I am so glad to hear it was enjoyed! Merry Christmas! 🎁🎄
the cookie itself is great, although as far as directions go, I think it’d be a good idea to put in the instruction of when to add the hazelnut liquor. I was looking forward to using it but since there was no direction to, I had forgotten to use it, and I’m a little bummed about it.
Also, the icing is very sweet. While that’s some people’s cup of tea, next time I make these I will likely sub a bit of the powdered sugar for corn starch, since the maple syrup adda a lot of sweetness.
This recipe was super easy and the cookies turned out delicious! Now I just need to keep my husband out of the cookie container so they actually make it to our Christmas destination!
Hey Molly,
Happy Friday!!☃️ I love to hear that this recipe was a winner, thanks so much for making it and your comment! xT
How long do you wait between vanilla icing and decorating with chocolate? Thanks!
Hi Virginia,
Just a few minutes until the icing sets:) I hope you love these cookies, please let me know if you give the recipe a try! xT
SO yummy!! I used vanilla extract instead of vanilla bean powder and did not add any hazelnut liquor and they still turned out delicious! I can’t speak to the vanilla icing because I used my own recipe for icing, but the cookie itself is sooo delicious.
Hey Jen,
Happy Holidays!! I love to hear that this recipe was enjoyed and appreciate you giving it a try! 🎄❄️
Delicious!!! I had issues with the frosting but it was so good regardless.
Hey Samantha,
Happy Holidays!! I love to hear that this recipe was enjoyed and appreciate you giving it a try! 🎄❄️
Is there a substitute for the hazelnut liquor? Would hazelnut syrup be too much? Thanks!
Hey Jade,
Since the hazelnut liquor is optional you can go ahead and skip it. Let me know how these cookies turn out, I hope you love them! xx
Is the hazelnut liquor added with the vanilla or later in the recipe? I could not find where this was mentioned in the directions.
Hey Beverly,
Yes, you’ll add that in step 3 if using:) Please let me know if you have any other questions, I hope you love this recipe! xT
These are adorable! Where did you get the adorable Christmas tree cutout?
Hi Laurie! I made the christmas tree cutout out of paper! xT
Where did you get the adorable Christmas tree cutout?
Wondering if you could give directions for what to do if you freeze the dough in a log… do you need to bring to room temp and then cut and bake? Bake longer? thanks
Hey Christine,
By the time you take the log out of the freezer and slice the cookies, you should be fine to just bake as directed:) I hope you love this recipe! xT
Can these be frozen? Would you recommend freezing these before icing them?
Hey Maura,
You bet, I would freeze before icing:) Please let me know if you have any other questions! xT
Hi Tieghan! Would you recommend freezing post-cutout, pre-bake?
Hey Gab,
Yup, you are going to do that in step 4:) Please let me know if you have any other questions! Happy Holidays! xx