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I can now officially talk all things Christmas!!!
And clearly I could not be more excited!
But first, happy Friday! How was everyone’s Thanksgiving? Did you all fill up on turkey, gravy and stuffing? Was everything perfect? Do you have horror stories?!?
TELL ME!! I so need to know. Mine was awesome, but I will tell you more about it on Sunday or Monday. I want to keep things short and sweet today since we are celebrating my younger brother Malachi’s 20th birthday and I need to actually try to be present!! Which means not spending the entire day working. Actually, this is an order from the fam, so I am trying my hardest.
That said, let’s talk cookies!!
Christmas Eggnog Scented Sugar Cookies to be exact! Aren’t these so fun? I mean, I know they don’t look all professional and perfect, but I have never claimed to be a pastry chef with mad skills at decorating. I actually want to pull my hair out most times I set out to make the “fancy” sugar cookies.
But these sugar cookies are easy. You can decorate them however you please (and for me that clearly means holiday sprinkles all the way!) and the dough is simple as can be… as is the icing. And umm, my dough is extra special since it’s spiked with a little Christmas eggnog.
Don’t be freaked if you’re not a fan of eggnog, you will still enjoy these sugar cookies. The eggnog really just keeps the cookies soft, moist and lends a nice sweetness that just kind of reminds you of all things Christmas. It’s perfect.
So a few notes. I make my sugar cookies a little different from most. Instead of refrigerating my dough before rolling them out and cutting the shapes, I do the opposite. I like to roll my dough out while it’s at room temperature. I think it just makes cookie making SO much simpler. I mean, the dough is so easy to work with and it never cracks. I do use flour to keep it from sticking, which I know some people are against, but I don’t know, I love the way my sugar cookies turn out. Once the cookies are all cut, shaped and on my cookie sheet, THEN I place them in the freezer (on the cookie sheet), for about 20-30 minutes to firm up before baking. This step insures the cookies don’t spread or change shape while baking.
Then off to the oven they go!!
Once the cookies have cooled I frost them with my simple vanilla icing. I like to use meringue powder in my icing, it just gives the icing a nice glossy look and also helps it to set and harden. If you don’t have meringue powder or don’t want to buy it, no biggie. You can omit it, but your cookies may take a little longer for the icing to set and harden. As for decorations, I keep it simple, holiday sprinkles work just fine for me. An artist I am not.
OKAY, but I did try kind of hard on those santa hats and faces. I used colored red and green icing (I like to use gel food coloring) and simple sprinkles. It actually wasn’t too hard.
Pat on the back for those santa cookies! 🙂
The rest were all made with sprinkles and icing. Super simple, but so cute! Or at least I think so!
Aside from all the cuteness, these eggnog scented sugar cookies are actually delicious! They’re soft in the middle, sweet and vanillay… pretty much Christmas perfection! You have to try them for your next cookie party or holiday baking day!!
PLEASE!!!
Eggnog Scented Christmas Sugar Cookies with Easy Vanilla Icing.
Servings: 48 Cookies
Calories Per Serving: 120 kcal
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Ingredients
- 3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter softened
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1 vanilla bean seeds removed (optional)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract* optional
- 1 egg at room temperature*
- 1/3 cup high quality eggnog
- 4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Easy Vanilla Icing
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons meringue powder
- 6-8 tablespoons water
- 1 vanilla bean seeds removed
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- assorted food coloring, holiday sprinkles and or candies, to decorate (optional)
Instructions
- To make the cookies, cream the butter, sugar, vanilla bean seeds, vanilla extract and almond extract in a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer until light and fluffy, about a full 3-5 minutes.
- Add the egg and eggnog and mix until evenly combined. Add half the flour, baking soda and salt, beating until combined. Then add the remaining flour and beat until the dough forms a ball.
- Generously flour your work surface. Divide the dough in half and flatten each half into a disk.
- Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Make sure you are using enough flour or your dough will stick. You can also roll the dough out between two piece of wax paper. Cut out the cookies into your desired shapes. Carefully transfer the cookies to a parchment line baking sheet. Cover the baking sheet and place the baking sheet in the freezer, freeze until very firm, about 25 minutes. Roll out the leftover scraps, and repeat with the remaining disk of dough.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Bake the cookies on the middle rack of the oven for 12-15 minutes or until just lightly golden brown. Do not over bake. Cool on the baking sheet five minutes and then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
- To make the icing, combine the sugar and meringue powder in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mixing on low speed, add 6 tablespoons water. Mix until icing holds a ribbonlike trail on the surface of the mixture for 5 seconds when you raise the paddle. Add the vanilla bean seeds and nutmeg, mix until just combined.
- Frost the cooled cookies and decorate as desired. I like to keep things simple and use holiday sprinkles to decorate most of my cookies. You can also use food coloring and color the frosting red, green or whatever colors you like. To pipe the icing onto the cookies, add the icing to a gallon size ziploc bag (or a piping bag), then snip of a small portion of the corner off.
Notes
*If you do not have almond extract on hand or cannot find it, feel free to just leave it out. BUT if you can find it, I think it really adds a lot.Â
 **To quickly bring your eggs to room temperature, place them in a large bowl with their shells on. Cover them with warm water and let them sit 5 minutes.
***The cookie dough can also be stored in the freezer for up to 1 month. To bake remove from the freezer and let sit on the counter for 5 minutes prior to baking. Bake As directed.
Don’t forget, always accompany your cookies with a large mug of milk…or maybe a cold eggnog….ooh, or maybe even hot cocoa!?!
They are simply beautiful and absolutely artistic. If I could do a job half as neat as yours, I’d be happy. You are a talented girl my dear. Feels like Christmas.
xoxo
THANK YOU! 🙂
Hey tieghan!!! Hope you had an amazing thanksgiving. I made a few of your recipes the most successful of which was the sweet potatoes with maple syrup whipped cream!!! My three year old twin nieces were in LOVE with it and kept asking if they could have more “mashed potatoes” aka the marshmallows on top and insisting they were eating veggies, it was so cute 🙂
How can you say you’re not an artist, these look amazing!
And I know, I totally feel festive now, especially as I’ve just finished making and shooting my first Christmas recipe of the year for my blog.
We don’t really do eggnog here in the UK which is a shame because I love it! Fantastic idea to use it in cookies, I bet they taste (and smell) amazing. I also like to cut out then freeze my biscuits, it’s so much easier!
These sound so good I must try making them right away!
http://xoxobella.com
I love your idea of cutting then freezing! Mind blown! These are adorable 🙂
Thank you so much, Becky! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!
Oh my, you make these look so easy and very delicious.
Thanks so much, Amy! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!
I’m OBSESSED with eggnog and cookies (duh ;), so these are right up my alley! Love the little tip about rolling them out before chilling them… totally trying that next time!
Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, lovely! xo
hehe! Thank you so much, Stephanie! Hope you and your family had a great Thanksgiving! 🙂 XO
I found your website about a month ago and I have LOVED reading all of your posts! 🙂 I made your sweet potato casserole, dinner rolls, and mini apple pies for my family for Thanksgiving and they were a huge hit, especially the pies! Thank you so much for all of your beautiful and delicious recipes!!
Oh my goodness, thank you so much! Your comment made my night! So happy all those recipe where hit! 🙂
Have a great weekend! 🙂
I can’t wait to make these! I love that you added extra flavor to the cookie dough and kept it softer with eggnog, and the easy icing using meringue powder. I’ve used meringue powder before in my cookie icing and it really makes it better. Thanks for this post!
Thank Karen! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving! 🙂
I love eggnog. What a great idea to add it to sugar cookies! I will definitely try these! I made way too much food for Thanksgiving. I have a whole turkey leftover. My refrigerator has more food now than when I started. We had 25 people over. At least one turkey is all gone. No disasters, but I am so tired.
Whoa! A whole turkey! Sounds like lots of yummy leftovers are coming your way! 🙂
I bet you are dead tired. Hope you got in a nape today! Have a great weekend!
I have a gravy question for you. I made your butter and herb turkey yesterday (it was incredibly!) however I had some issues with the gravy . I followed your instructions and I set it in the freezer and skimmed the fat off and I ended up straining the whole thing also. It was super greasy. I threw away the grease and used a little bit of the left over browned bits and threw them in with some plain chicken broth. Still turned out tasty but I am wondering what I did wrong. Any thoughts????
Hmm, honestly I am not sure. It sounds like you got ride of a lot of fat, so i do not know why the gravy was greasy. Maybe it was too much butter? Or did the grease seem more like turkey drippings? Sometimes I have a hard time with gravy too and to be honest I have not found me PERFECT recipe yet…still working on it! Hope I can help you though!
Have a great weekend!
Those cookies look super adorable, the eggnog flavouring will definitely give them that extra festiveness 🙂
Thanks so much! Have a great weekend!
I’ve never tried eggnog. How have a lived my life like this? I don’t know!
But these might give me reason to try it.
I agree with you that the sprinkles just make it so fun and cute.
Christmas is coming and I couldn’t be happier! Your cookies get me in the mood for carols 🙂
You have to try these cookies, you will love them! 🙂
Thanks Payton! Have a great weekend!
These are so super cute 🙂 . I like the fact that the batch is fairly large, as me and cookies…. well, one is never enough, and certainly wont be with these ! I will be making these, for sure.
Great idea about the dough. I definitely will be doing it your way from now onwards, just makes so much sense. Have a great day and an awesome weekend 🙂
Thanks Lynne! Have a great weekend!