Holiday Cookie Baking Tips for Tastier Treats

Cookies are synonymous with the holidays. From baking goodies for parties, gifts and recipe exchanges to whipping up a batch of treats for Santa, baking Christmas cookies is a time-honored tradition for many. A tray full of festive sugar cookies, gingerbread men, crinkle cookies and countless other varieties can bring a smile to just about anyone’s face – not to mention a rumble to their tummy. 

For both novice and seasoned home bakers looking for a few tricks to make the dough making and cookie baking a little easier, we’ve rounded up a dozen must-try Christmas cookie baking tips to make the season a little merrier. 

1. Read the Ingredient List and Instructions Completely Before Getting Starting

The most important of all Christmas cookie tips? Read the ingredient list and the directions completely before you get started baking. After all, you can’t make any cookies if you don’t have the supplies and knowledge you need to make them. Make sure you have all the ingredients on hand and that you understand all the equipment needed and recipe steps on the front end.

See more: 12 Days of Christmas Cookie Recipes

2. Use Room-Temperature Butter and Eggs

When creaming butter and eggs together for cookies, it’s important to start with room-temperature ingredients. It’s easy to understand why room-temperature butter creams more efficiently than cold butter, but why do the eggs need to be room temp, too? Cold eggs can make the butter colder, defeating the purpose of bringing it to room temperature in the first place. And if the recipe calls for milk or other dairy, use that at room temperature, too.

Eggs outside of the carton will come to room temperature in about half an hour. A stick of butter will take half an hour to an hour, depending on the temperature of the kitchen. 

3. Fully Cream the Butter and Sugar

It can take up to five minutes to fully cream butter and sugar together using an electric mixer. Making sure to do it correctly adds the right amount of air to the dough. Through the magic of chemistry, the air keeps cookies from baking too fast, resulting in cookies with a better texture. Cream butter and sugar together at medium speed for five minutes, then add the egg (if called for) and beat for another minute to combine.

4. Chill Cookie Dough Before Baking

If your goal is chewy cookies, chill the dough for at least 30 minutes before shaping. This baking hack helps create chewy cookies because the butter or other fat used in the cookies will firm up. The resulting cookies won’t spread as far as those baked with room-temperature dough. The thicker cookies will be softer and chewier inside. 

See more: How 5 Holiday Baking Staples Go From the Farm to Your Table

5. Flour Your Cookie Cutters

Here’s an excellent cookie baking tip for when you’re cutting dough with cookie cutters: Flour the cookie cutters so they won’t stick to the dough. Your cookie cutters will easily lift out of the dough, and you’ll be able to carefully remove the excess dough around your perfectly shaped Christmas tree, Rudolph, star or dreidel. 

See more: 10 Irresistible Gingerbread Recipes to Make This Holiday Season

6. Let Your Cookie Sheets Cool Before the Next Batch

If you scoop cookie dough onto a hot or warm baking sheet, the dough will start to spread and start baking even before you put it in the oven, changing the consistency of the finished cookies. Be sure to let each cookie sheet cool completely before scooping another batch of dough out onto it, and use the extra time to start any decorating that might be involved.

7. Don’t Overcrowd Cookies on the Baking Sheet

It’s tempting to try to fit as many cookies onto a baking sheet as possible to save time, but it’s best to bake in batches and give cookies more room. As the cookies spread in the oven, they could run together, creating cookies that are more square than round. It also prevents the cookies from baking evenly. So plan enough time when you’re baking so you don’t have to rush and squish too many cookies on the last baking sheet or two that go in the oven.

8. Slightly Under-Bake Cookies

If you love your cookies chewy, take them out of the oven a minute before the directions instruct. The cookies won’t be undercooked because they continue to cook on the hot sheet once it’s out of the oven.

See more: 10 Hosting Tips for a Stress-Free Holiday Season

9. Make Your Cookies Perfectly Round

If the aesthetic of perfectly round cookies is important to you, this is one of the easiest Christmas cookie baking tips to follow. When cookies come out of the oven, they’re mostly round. But to make them perfectly round and uniform, shape them again while they’re still on the hot baking sheet. Simply take something round – such as a round cookie cutter or the rim of a mug or glass – and place it over each cookie. Begin swirling it around the edges of the cookies to create perfect circles. Work quickly so you can get to all the cookies while they are still warm and malleable. 

10. Remind Yourself There’s No Shame in Cookie Bars

If you’re short on time, cookie bars can create an entire batch of cookies at once – no scooping individual cookies required, and no trays going in and out of the oven until all the cookies are baked. To get clean edges when cutting into squares, let them cool first, then spray your cutting tool with non-stick spray.

11. Perk Up the Flavor of Chocolate Cookies With Coffee

Of all the holiday baking tips you see, this one isn’t mentioned often. But if you’re making cookies with chocolate in the dough such as our Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, adding a touch of instant or brewed coffee enhances the flavor without making them taste like coffee. Add no more than 1 ½ teaspoons of strong liquid coffee (or espresso) to your dough to get the flavor boost.

See more: 10 Creative Christmas Recipes

12. Cool Cookies on Racks

Using cooling racks might be one of the easiest (and most important) cookie baking tips. Why? It takes no extra effort to use them, and they’re so helpful. Cooling racks allow air to circulate all around the cookies as they cool evenly and quickly, making your efforts more efficient. They’re also perfect for cooling quick breads, cakes and muffins.