Spiced Christmas Tree Cookies

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 with lots of warming spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Bake a batch of cookies for your holiday table or even for gift-giving, they are always a favorite.

Course Cookies

Cuisine Dessert

Prep Time 25

Cook Time 10

chill time 30

Total Time 1 5

Servings cookies

Calories 155kcal

Author Jere' Cassidy

Equipment

Ingredients

Cookie Dough

1 cup butter softened
1 ½ cups light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups AP Flour
2 tsp. ground ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt

Powdered Sugar Icing

2 cups powdered sugar sifted
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 ½ tablespoons milk add more if needed
gel food coloring red and green

Instructions

Making the dough

NOTE: This dough needs to be chilled before rolling.
In a large mixing bowl beat the butter and brown sugar until creamy. You can use either a stand mixer or a handheld mixer.
Mix in the eggs one at a time at medium speed, then add the vanilla. Scrape the bowl and mix again to totally incorporated the ingredients.
In a small bowl add flour, all the spices, and salt then mix together. Add this mixture to the bowl and mix on low speed until the flour is incorporated. If using a handheld mixer, beat at medium speed.
Divide the dough and place it on plastic wrap and flatten. Wrap the dough and place it in the refrigerator for ½ hour.
Preheat oven to 350° F. and prepare cookie sheets with parchment paper or a Silpat. I use three cookie sheets at a time for baking.
Once the dough is chilled place it on a floured surface, roll out one batch of dough to ⅛" thickness, and cut with floured cookie cutters.
Set the cookies on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let set for five minutes then move the cookies to a cooling rack.
Repeat cutting out and baking the remaining dough. Rerolling the leftover dough.
Make sure the cookie sheets are cooled before adding more cutouts to the pan.

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, but 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.
Options - you can place the icing in plastic food bags and snip off a tip of the bag for piping.
Or, you can ice the entire cookie.
Allow the icing to dry for an hour.
Store the cookies in an airtight container. Make sure the frosting is dry. Also this icing does not get totally hard, so be careful if stacking the cookies.

Notes

This recipe does not use a leavener such as, baking powder or baking soda, so the dough will not spread or rise while baking.

Notes on rolling and baking the cookies:

When using a cookie-cutter, try to get as close as possible to the cutouts so there is minimal dough leftover.
With the leftover dough, gather all the scraps and form into a ball then reroll the ball.
One thing, the more you reroll the cookie dough, the tougher the dough will get, especially if you are adding more flour for rolling, so keep the cookie cutouts close together.

The number of cookies you get from this dough can vary depending on the size of the cookie cutter you use.

These cookies can be frosted all over instead of piping the dots. For fun and color, add sprinkles on top.

Nutrition