Spiced Christmas Tree Cookies

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Oh, how I love the smell of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg filling my kitchen with their spicy scents. Not only do these spices smell amazing they also make baked goods taste heavenly, as all bakes goods should. That is why I use all these spices in my favorite Spiced Christmas Tree Cookies.

These cookies are very simple to make, they taste great and are super cute. They just make you want to sing carols.

Spiced Christmas Cookies

 Nothing says Christmas like decorated cutout cookies

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The Tradition of Cookie Baking for Christmas

• Cookie baking is a tradition in my home at Christmas time and these sugar cookies filled with warming spices get baked every year. They are both deliciously sweet and spicy and perfect for your holiday table, cookie exchange or gift-giving.
• Did you know the ritual of baking cookies for Christmas started in Medieval Europe?
• Cookie cutters started to appear in the 1400s in Italy and soon became popular with cookie makers in England and soon the German and Dutch in America.
• Gingerbread cookies are the most popular cookies at Christmas time.
• The beloved tradition of leaving cookies for Santa started during the Great Depression in the 1930s to show gratitude to others and the importance of giving.

The ingredients to make easy spice cookies

1. Butter – unsalted and softened
2. Brown sugar – for this recipe I use light brown sugar
3. Eggs
4. Vanilla – for flavor
5. Flour – all-purpose
6. Spices – Ginger, Cinnamon, Cloves and Nutmeg
7. Salt
8. For the icing – powdered sugar, corn syrup, milk, and food coloring

There are many recipes for spice cookies that use molasses but these cookies rely on just three spices that give a light spicy flavor to the cookies.

How to make Spiced Christmas Tree Cookies

The recipe for these spice cookies is simple and the dough mixes quickly.

Simply just add butter, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla.  Mix together and then add flour and all those glorious spices.

I happen to own a lot of cookie cutters and most of them are for Christmas cookies, but I find I use this Christmas tree cutter the most.  I love the size and shape of the trees.  If you don’t happen to have a tree cookie cutter, other cutters will be just as fun. You can even look around your kitchen for some fun shapes to cut out the dough, believe it or not, a cup works great.

For those of you wanting a Christmas tree cookie cutter, this Ann Clark cookie cutter is the perfect size and shape.

This is the easiest dough to work with.  It is not sticky, rolls out smooth, cuts clean and is so easy to transfer to your cookie sheet. This is the best dough to work with.

Decorating cookies is fun but over the years I have gotten away from the heavily iced cookies I used to do in the past.  I have quite the fondness for these cute Christmas tree cookies because they have such a simple design with just the red, white and green dots. Sometimes less is more!

A simple powdered sugar icing and food coloring are all that is needed for decorating.

I use parchment paper to make a piping bag and a number 4 piping tip to make the dots.  There is no need to invest in decorating supplies since you can just put your icing in a small plastic storage bag and snip a little hole on one end to make the dots.

All done and decorated with red, white and green.

Are you ready to bake some cookies, go grab your cookie cutter and rolling pin?

Print Pin

5 from 22 votes

Spiced Christmas Tree Cookies

Oh, what fun it is to make these Spiced Christmas Tree Cookies. You can decorate these cookies with colorful icing dots or leave them plain, either way, these cookies taste great.

Course Cookies

Cuisine Dessert

Keyword Christmas Cookies, cookies, spice cookies

Prep Time 25 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

chill time 30 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes

Servings 22 cookies

Calories 166kcal

Author Jere@One Hot Oven

Equipment

• Cookie Sheet Pans
• Parchment Paper
• Christmas Tree Cookie Cutter

Ingredients

Cookie Dough

• 1 cup softened butter
• 1 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 3 cups AP Flour
• 2 tsp. ground ginger
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. cloves
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Powdered Sugar Icing

• 2 cups sifted powdered sugar
• 2 tbls corn syrup use light corn syrup
• 2 1/2 - 3 tbls. milk
• gel food coloring red and green

Instructions

Making the dough

• In a large mixing bowl beat the butter and brown sugar until creamed.
• Add in the eggs one at a time
• Add the vanilla and beat until fluffy
• Combine all the dry ingredients and beat into the butter mixture on low speed.
• Divide the dough and place on wax paper and flatten. Wrap and place in the fridge for 1/2 hour.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• On a floured surface, roll out one batch of dough to 1/8" thickness and cut with floured cookie cutters.
• Set on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes.
• Repeat with the remaining dough.
• When done set on a cooling rack until ready to decorate

Powdered Sugar Icing

• Mix the powdered sugar, corn syrup and milk in a small mixing bowl until smooth.
• Add more milk if the icing is too thick.
• You want this icing thick enough to pipe and not spread on the cookie.
• Divide the icing into three bowls and tint one with red food coloring and one with green food coloring.
• Place the icing in a piping bag with a #4 tip and slowly pipe dots all around the cookie in different colors
• Allow the icing to dry for an hour.

Notes

These cookies can be frosted all over with just one color and add sprinkles on top.

Nutrition

Serving: 1g | Calories: 166kcal | Carbohydrates: 22g | Fat: 8.8g | Cholesterol: 37mg | Sodium: 123mg

Now every good plate of cookies has a perfect tea to go with it. With so many delicious teas in our collection, we had to have lots of cuppas and Christmas Tree Cookies to find the perfect match. But we did it – and had some cookies to spare.

Today I am enjoying these wonderful spice cookies with a Tea Forte’s Spiced Ginger Plum Tea from their Warming Glow Collection.

These cookies and tea are the perfect pairings as the buttery plum flavor of the tea brings out the spices of the cookies and actually enhances the overall deliciousness of these cookies. Both the tea and the cookie have a subtle ginger flavor that is pure magic when enjoyed together. The beautiful plum color of the tea also adds so much joy to the experience that you just can’t help but be filled with Christmas spirit when you eat the cookies.

Christmas Cookies with Tea

Tea Forte offers a unique variety of high-quality teas with luxurious packaging.  I just want to try all their teas.

Don’t forget the cookie-cutter and my favorite box of food coloring.

If you are a tea drinker or looking for a gift for a tea lover, Tea Forte has a beautiful gift box of Warming Joy Tea that includes the Spiced Ginger Plum Tea.  They also have one of the most unique tea cup that goes with their tea pod.  These porcelain cups have a steeping lid with a little hole to put your tea bag string through so it doesn’t get wet, and it looks so impressive with their little leaf logo coming out the top of the cup.  You need one of these cups.

Wishing you many blessings and lots of joy for the holidays.