
Top Christmas Cookie Recipes
From classic gingerbread and chocolate crinkles to showstopping decorated masterpieces and fudgy brownie bars, this collection covers every cookie you need for holiday baking. Whether you're filling cookie tins, hosting a swap, or just craving something festive and delicious, you'll find recipes that deliver on flavor, texture, and that "wow, can I have the recipe?" factor. Time to preheat the oven and make this season sweeter.
Classic Christmas Cookies
For the chocolate lovers who think vanilla cookies are missing the point. From dramatic black cocoa crinkles and fudgy brownie-style cookies to espresso-spiked treats and homemade Oreo sandwiches, these recipes bring serious chocolate flavor to the holiday cookie plate. Rich, indulgent, and guaranteed to disappear first - because sometimes gingerbread just isn't going to cut it.

Soft Gingerbread Cookies (Cut-Out Style)
This family heirloom recipe yields soft, chewy gingerbread cookies perfectly spiced with ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. The secret to their pillowy texture is the combination of vinegar and baking soda, and a double-ch...

Soft Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
This flagship recipe from New York Times best-selling cookbook author Sally McKenney features thick centers with slightly crisp edges and an irresistible buttery vanilla flavor. The clever technique of rolling dough B...

Buttery Vanilla Shortbread Cookies
This intensely buttery classic from cookbook author Sarah Kieffer uses both granulated and confectioners' sugar for perfect texture, plus an egg yolk for color and richness. The slice-and-bake format with sanding suga...

Red & Green Sugar Cookies
These sparkly little butter cookies are all about simplicity and shine. A quick roll in sanding sugar gives them their signature crunch and festive color, and they bake up with crisp edges and soft centers that disapp...

Russian Tea Cakes (Snowball Cookies)
This classic recipe from blogger Lindsay Conchar features tender, buttery cookies with toasted pecans, rolled twice in powdered sugar for an irresistible melt-in-your-mouth texture. Using only 6 ingredients (butter, p...

Snickerdoodles
This classic snickerdoodle recipe produces soft, chewy, and moist cookies in less than 30 minutes. The butter/shortening combination delivers perfect buttery flavor with tender texture, while cream of tartar provides ...

Peanut Butter Blossoms
Ali Martin's peanut butter blossoms are extra soft and flavorful because she increased the peanut butter and vanilla amounts while replacing traditional shortening with butter. Her smart technique of freezing Hershey'...
Thumbprint Cookies (Jam-Filled)
These elegant buttery shortbread cookies feature a tender cookie base made with both granulated and brown sugar for extra flavor and tenderness, filled with sweet raspberry jam. The recipe emphasizes using quality thi...

Spritz Cookies (Classic Pressed Butter Cookies)
This treasured Swedish family recipe from "Grandma Prudy" creates authentically Scandinavian pressed cookies with only 6 simple ingredients including almond extract for their signature flavor. Made with a cookie press...

Christmas Chocolate Chip Cookies
This recipe from Tieghan Gerard creates the ultimate soft, doughy, chewy chocolate chip cookie dressed up for Christmas with festive red and green M&Ms. The secret ingredient is cornstarch, combined with melted butter...

White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
These soft, chewy oatmeal cookies are jam-packed with festive holiday flavors - tart dried cranberries and sweet white chocolate chips. The combination of red berries and white chocolate creates a beautiful Christmas ...

Authentic Pfeffernüsse (German Spice Cookies)
This thoroughly authentic German Pfeffernüsse recipe uses traditional ingredients including Lebkuchengewürz (German gingerbread spice blend), white pepper (giving these cookies their distinctive "pepper nut" name), al...
Chocolate Christmas Cookies
Dark, fudgy brownies and cookies with serious chocolate flavor. Black cocoa turns ordinary chocolate treats into showstoppers - think homemade Oreos, midnight-black chocolate chip cookies, and brownies so rich they need no introduction. These recipes deliver on both color and taste, whether you're batch-baking for a crowd or treating yourself to something indulgent. Perfect for cookie swaps, gift boxes, or the kind of chocolate craving that won't settle for ordinary.

Black Cocoa Crinkle Cookies
Dramatic black and white crinkles with fudgy Oreo-like centers and a powdered sugar coating. These elegant cookies are dressed up for the holidays with their striking appearance and rich, not-too-sweet chocolate flavor.

Black Cocoa Sandwich Cookies
Crispy sugar cookies with authentic Oreo flavor from black cocoa, perfect for cutting into festive shapes. Optional second bake creates extra-crispy texture, with endless filling possibilities from vanilla buttercream...

Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies (Peppermint-Dipped)
Fudgy chocolate cookies made with Dutch-process cocoa powder are dipped in silky white chocolate and rolled in crushed candy canes for a stunning festive presentation. The recipe includes cornstarch for ultra-soft, ch...

Hot Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies
These cozy cookies capture the essence of a warm mug of hot cocoa, featuring a soft, fudgy chocolate base topped with a perfectly toasted marshmallow half. The broiled marshmallow gets wonderfully gooey with golden ed...

Chocolate Shortbread Cookies
Elegant, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate shortbread featuring dark chocolate chunks and a glistening sanding sugar coating. This recipe uses 100% powdered sugar for the most tender, delicate texture and bakes the cookies...

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
The quintessential Christmas cookie with a snowy powdered sugar coating that cracks beautifully as it bakes, revealing a rich, fudgy chocolate interior. This recipe requires no fancy ingredients - just pantry staples ...

Coal Cookies (Sandwich Cookies)
Gourmet homemade Oreos with smooth vanilla buttercream filling that taste better than store-bought. These Christmas coal cookies are a fun twist on the classic, making everyone beg to be on the naughty list.

Lump of Coal Cookies
Fudgy double chocolate cookies shaped like charming coal lumps - the perfect treat for anyone on Santa's naughty list. Inspired by Levain Bakery's thick, craggy cookies with soft gooey centers and dramatic black color.

Triple Chocolate Cookies
A chocolate lover's dream featuring three types of chocolate in every bite: milk chocolate, semisweet, and white chocolate chips nestled in a rich Dutch-process cocoa dough. No chill time required, making this perfect...
Our RecipeChocolate Marshmallow Cookies
Rich, chewy, and impossibly chocolatey, these cookies use our Modern Mountain Black Cocoa Powder for that signature dark-as-night color and deep flavor. Each warm cookie hides a gooey marshmallow center that bakes int...
Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies
These adorable thumbprints feature chewy, brownie-like chocolate bases filled with silky dark chocolate ganache that achieves the perfect "soft set" - firm enough to stay in place but creamy when you bite in. The reci...

Fudgy Salted Brownie Cookies
These reader-favorite brownie cookies deliver shiny, crackled tops and intensely fudgy centers that look stunning on any holiday cookie platter. Made with high-quality semisweet chocolate (66-70% cacao) and finished w...

Chewy Double Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
Simple, one-bowl chocolate cookies loaded with chocolate chips and topped with crushed candy cane that's sprinkled on immediately after baking for perfect adhesion. Ready in just 30 minutes from start to finish, these...

Andes Mint Cookies
These thick, chewy cookies are packed with chopped Andes mints in what the blogger calls her "ideal mint-chocolate-candy-to-dough ratio." The espresso powder is a secret weapon that intensifies the chocolate flavor wi...

Chocolate-Dipped Snowball Cookies
These elegant snowball truffles combine the beloved melt-in-your-mouth texture of classic Russian tea cakes with a decadent chocolate coating. The powdered sugar dusted over the chocolate creates a beautiful "snowy" a...

Mocha Cookies
Bite-sized soft and chewy espresso chocolate chip cookies rolled in cocoa powder and dusted with powdered sugar for an elegant "snowfall" effect. The recipe creator, a professionally trained chef and cookbook author, ...
Decorated Christmas Cookies
Where baking meets art - and tastes better than it looks. From royal icing masterpieces and marbled dips to stained glass candy windows and painted watercolor designs, these cookies turn your kitchen into a creative studio. Perfect for gifting, cookie swaps, or just showing off a little, because sometimes you want cookies that make people stop scrolling and start asking questions.

Nordic Gingerbread Cookies
Spice up your cookie tray with a little Scandinavian charm. These gingerbread cookies are sturdy enough to decorate yet soft enough to eat (no gingerbread brick here!). They’re adorned in an easy powdered sugar icing ...

Christmas Decorated Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing
These stunning cookies showcase the classic "outline and flood" royal icing technique, where piped borders create dams before thinned icing fills each section. The recipe features adorable Santa face cookies and vinta...

How to Decorate Christmas Cookies: 3 Ways
This comprehensive tutorial teaches three distinct royal icing techniques: marbled icing created by swirling food coloring with a toothpick then dipping cookies face-down; glazed bases with detailed piping and sanding...

Marbled Christmas Tree Sugar Cookies
These stunning cookies feature a cream cheese sugar cookie base as a canvas for mesmerizing marbled royal icing. Three different shades of one color (like lime green, leaf green, and moss green) are drizzled into whit...

Soft Frosted Christmas Cookies
These soft sugar cookies bake up thick, fluffy, and impossibly tender, just like the bakery style everyone reaches for first. The simple vanilla frosting spreads easily and gives you a perfect canvas for sprinkles or ...

Swirled Christmas Cookies
Three portions of sugar cookie dough are colored red, green, and white, rolled into thin rectangles, then stacked and rolled into a tight log. The log is coated in Christmas nonpareil sprinkles, chilled, then sliced i...

Black Cocoa Cut-Out Cookies
These Oreo-dark cookies use a generous full cup of black cocoa powder, creating an intensely colored base that provides dramatic contrast with bright icing decorations. The cookies are decorated with royal icing using...

Red Truck & Christmas Tree Cookies
These charming vintage red truck cookies hauling fresh-cut Christmas trees bring nostalgic holiday cheer to any cookie platter. These cookies look impressive but follow a straightforward decorating process. Perfect fo...
Showstopper Christmas Cookies
These are the cookies that make people ask how you did it - and whether you'll make them again next year. From 3D Christmas trees and edible cookie boxes to watercolor-painted snowflakes and chocolate-tahini linzers, these recipes require a little more time, a little more technique, and deliver a lot more wow. Perfect for cookie swaps where you want to win (or at least tie for first), holiday parties that deserve something special, or just proving to yourself that yes, you can absolutely pull this off.

Watercolor Snowflake Cookies
This artistic technique involves flooding sugar cookies with smooth white royal icing, then painting with gel food coloring thinned with high-proof clear alcohol (Everclear or clear vanilla extract). The alcohol-based...

Decorated 3D Christmas Tree Cookies
Ever seen a cookie double as a holiday centerpiece? These 3D Christmas tree cookies stack crisp cut-outs into an edible evergreen forest. Each “tree” is iced snow-white and dusted with sparkling sugar for extra magic....

Chocolate Snowman Cookies
Build a batch of these adorable chocolate snowmen and watch everyone melt. Three sizes of rich cocoa cookies are frosted and stacked to create each smiley snowman, complete with little mango “carrot” noses and licoric...

Chocolate-Tahini Linzer Cookies
These Linzers take the classic holiday cutout and give it a richer, more nuanced flavor with cocoa and tahini. The dough stays tender, the edges stay clean, and the finished cookies look striking once filled and duste...

Stained Glass Window Cookies
These buttery sugar cookies feature jewel-toned "windows" created by cutting festive shapes, removing smaller centers, then filling with crushed Jolly Rancher candies that melt during baking into gorgeous translucent ...
Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies
Attention chocoholics: this is the Christmas cookie of your dreams. These dark chocolate thumbprints get their bold flavor from Dutch cocoa and are filled with a velvety chocolate ganache center that’s chef’s kiss per...

Christmas Present Cookie Boxes
Talk about the whole package! These crafty sugar cookies assemble into miniature gift boxes that you can fill with candies or other treats. Each cookie box is decorated like a Christmas present, lid and all - from rib...

Raspberry Linzer Cookies
A Christmas classic that’s equal parts elegant and delicious. These tender shortbread Linzer cookies are sandwiched with ruby-red raspberry jam and dusted with a flurry of powdered sugar snow. They definitely make a s...
Christmas Cookie Bars & Brownies
Not technically cookies, but they absolutely belong on the holiday dessert table - especially when you need to feed a crowd without rolling, cutting, and decorating 60 individual cookies. From fudgy peppermint mocha brownies and eggnog-frosted gingerbread bars to Starbucks-inspired cranberry bliss and red velvet cheesecake swirls, these bars bring all the festive flavor with way less fuss. Just bake, slice, and watch them disappear from the platter. Perfect for potlucks, parties, or when you want homemade holiday treats without spending your entire Saturday in the kitchen.

Fudgy Peppermint Mocha Brownies
Ultra-fudgy and utterly festive, these peppermint mocha brownies marry rich Dutch cocoa and a touch of espresso for a deep chocolate base bursting with holiday flavor. Each dense, chewy square is infused with cool pep...

Gingerbread Brownies with Eggnog Frosting
Chewy gingerbread meets fudgy brownie in this spiced-up holiday mashup, topped with a cloud of silky eggnog cream cheese frosting. The luscious frosting is spiked with real eggnog and nutmeg, mellowing the gingerbread...

Chocolate Snowman Cookies
A little spice makes everything nice in these Mexican hot chocolate brownies. The batter is enriched with warming cinnamon and a whisper of cayenne, creating a deep cocoa flavor with a subtle kick. Baked until fudgy i...

"Cosmic” Christmas Tree Brownies
These adorable tree-shaped brownies are a playful upgrade of the viral cosmic brownie - and they scream Christmas! A super-rich, fudgy chocolate brownie base is cut into triangles and topped with green-tinted white ch...

White Chocolate Peppermint Blondies
Buttery, chewy, and topped with festive crunch, these white chocolate peppermint blondies taste just like the holidays. The blondie base is studded with white chocolate chips and a sprinkle of crushed candy canes, giv...

Eggnog Sugar Cookie Bars
Two times the eggnog makes these frosted sugar cookie bars a must-bake for any eggnog lover. Soft and buttery with a tender crumb, the cookie bar base is flavored with real eggnog and nutmeg, then spread with a genero...

Cranberry Bliss Bars
A spot-on copycat of the Starbucks favorite, these Cranberry Bliss Bars are pure holiday joy. The base is a moist brown sugar blondie loaded with white chocolate chunks, chewy dried cranberries, and a kiss of orange z...

Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies
Vibrant red swirls make these brownies a stunning addition to any holiday dessert platter. They combine the best of three worlds - rich chocolatey brownies, tangy cream cheese cheesecake, and the classic flavor of red...

The Scoop on our Meringue Powder
A meringue powder for royal icing fit for a queen. Effortlessly whip up beautiful batches and give your sugar cookie designs the fairytale ending they deserve.
No Titanium Dioxide
Professional Quality
Naturally Flavored
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We've Got Answers
What's the difference between your meringue powder and others on the market?
Modern Mountain Meringue Powder is made without titanium dioxide (the white colorant found in some other brands but recently banned in the EU due to safety concerns), uses non-GMO sourced ingredients, and contains only natural flavoring. It creates royal icing with excellent structure, quick dry time, and a clean taste that won't compete with your cookie flavors.
Can I use this meringue powder for things besides royal icing?
Absolutely! While royal icing might be its claim to fame, our meringue powder is wonderfully versatile. Use it for meringue cookies, stabilized whipped cream, fluffy buttercream, or even to add structure to your cake batters. It's the egg white solution without the hassle of separating eggs or worrying about freshness.
How much meringue powder do I need for a batch of royal icing?
Our classic royal icing recipe is one high in meringue powder because we’ve found that works best. Follow the recipe included on the package or check out our recipe for the perfect royal icing. However, our meringue powder will work wonderfully using your normal quantities in any preferred royal icing recipe. Our premium formula is designed to give you excellent structure and the perfect consistency for both outlining and flooding.
Is your meringue powder gluten-free?
Yes! Our meringue powder is tested and verified gluten-free per FDA standards (<20ppm). While it is processed in a facility that also handles wheat products, we implement strict protocols and testing to ensure gluten levels remain well below FDA requirements. We believe in full transparency about our production environment while maintaining rigorous quality standards, making this meringue powder an excellent choice for most gluten-sensitive bakers.
Does your meringue powder contain any artificial ingredients?
No artificial ingredients here! Our meringue powder is crafted with non-GMO sourced ingredients and natural flavors. We've skipped the titanium dioxide (a whitening agent commonly used in other brands and recently banned in the EU due to safety concerns) in favor of a cleaner ingredient list that still delivers professional-quality results.

