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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.
Delicious and adorable! My step daughter and her mother made these last year and they are by far the best and cutest Christmas cookies I have ever had. Cannot wait to make them this year!
Hey Jeanette,
Happy Monday!! 🍁 Love to hear that this recipe turned out well for you, thanks a bunch for making it! xT
Hi Tieghan – Looking forward to making these cookies this year for my holiday cookie boxes.
Do you measure the butter before or after it’s browned?
Hey Julie,
You are going to measure the butter before it is browned. I hope you love these cookies! Let me know if you have any other questions! xT
These cookies are by far my favourite! I have used this recipe multiple times for different occasions and they are always a hit!
Hey Alex,
Awesome!! Thanks for making this recipe, I love to hear that it was enjoyed! Have a great week:) xTieghan
These are awesome … using them as my go to vanilla cookies anytime of the year !!!
Thank you 🙂
Hi Vanessa,
Wonderful! I am thrilled to hear that this recipe was enjoyed, thanks for making it. Have the best weekend:) xTieghan
Really loved the brown butter/vanilla flavor of this cookie and the creative use of the small M&M’s.
Wondering where you got the tree cookie cutter you used? Such a unique tree shape – loved it!
Hi Beverly,
Wonderful! I am thrilled to hear this recipe was enjoyed, thanks for giving it a go! I drew the stencil for the tree:) Happy New Year!? xTieghan
Made these and i cant stop eating them before bed right now. I saw someone added frangelico to the icing, good call! I subbed it for the water in the icing, which i will add less next time because i almost feel like a lil tipsy. However, the cookie itself is the vanilla cookie of my dreams!
I froze the other half of the dough for another time, but curious about storing? Air tight container on counter ok for a few days?
Hi Leah,
Awesome!! I am thrilled to hear this recipe was enjoyed, thanks so much for making it! If you have extra dough I would store in the fridge. Happy Holidays!? xT
These cookies slap!
Hi Natalie,
I love to hear that this recipe was enjoyed, thanks so much for giving it a try! Happy Holidays! xT
I have been looking for a great tasting sugar cookie for YEARS. This is it! This is the one I will come back to each Christmas. Truly delicious. Thank you!
Hi Jessica,
Thank you so much for making this recipe, I am so glad to hear it was enjoyed! Merry Christmas!?? xT
These were a huge hit!! I made them for my husband to take to work for Christmas and multiple people thought we got them from a bakery! I will be making these every year now! ?
Hi Taylor,
Happy Holidays! Thank you so much for making this recipe, I love to hear that it was enjoyed!?? xTieghan
These cookies taste great and came out so adorable. I ended up using a different frosting recipe from another one of yours (cinnamon browned butter) and it was such a hit! Thanks!
Hi Mary,
Happy Holidays! Thank you so much for making this recipe, I love to hear that it was enjoyed!?? xTieghan
Amazing! Three days after bake and they are still soft and delicious. The dough was so easy to cut with & the vanilla tastes so good.
Hi Holly,
Wonderful! I love to hear that this recipe was enjoyed, thanks for giving it a try! Happy Holidays!?? xTieghan
These turned out really well! I made an icing out of butter, Frangelico (hazelnut), vanilla, and icing sugar to build on the Frangelico flavour in the dough.
Hi Leslie,
Wonderful! I love to hear that this recipe was enjoyed, thanks for giving it a try! Happy Holidays!?? xTieghan
Hi I made this cookies for the kids in our family to decorate in Xmas eve. However my dough started to crumble into little balls half way through. Still got a decent amount of cookies out of it though… do you know why this happened? Thanks for all your recipes they’re always the best!
Hi Annie,
Thanks for giving the recipe a try, sorry to hear this. Was there anything you adjusted in the recipe? A little more info would be helpful:) xTieghan
Mine did the same thing. I got 20 cookies out of the dough, but it was very crumbly. I couldn’t roll it out, I had to press it with my hands. I didn’t use the hazelnut, that’s the only thing different I did.
Sorry to hear this Rachel. I am wondering if you might have had too much flour?
Hi Tieghan, I will be making these cookies for a work Christmas cookie exchange. What size are the cookie cutters you used?
Hey Jenny,
I probably used a 2 inch circle cookie cutter. Sorry, I am not sure on the size of the tree, I drew that. You can really use any sized cookie cutters that you like. Please let me know if you have any other questions! xx
These cookies are delicious! I did the slice and bake method and of course didn’t read the instructions so I only had them in the refrigerator for 1 hour. And my logs were to skinny so the diameter of my cookies was pretty small. But, nonetheless, the still came out great. And now I know for next time!
Hi Judy,
Thank you so very much for giving this recipe a try, I love to hear that it was enjoyed! Happy Holidays!??
Excited to try these! For the icing, is there anything I can use as a substitute for the maple syrup?
Hi Riz,
You could use honey in place of the maple syrup. Please let me know if you give the recipe a try, I hope you love it! xTieghan
These were so fun to make and we loved them! Had to use honey instead of maple syrup for the icing and it still tasted great, though I had to add more water to thin it out a bit. I also ended up freezing half the dough as there would be too many cookies for my 2-person household – how long would they be good for in the freezer?
Hey Riz,
Awesome!! I am thrilled to hear this recipe was enjoyed, thanks so much for making it! I would keep for no more than 3 months in the freezer. Happy Holidays!? xT