Ah, so it's (let me count...) five days before Christmas and you're now thinking "you know what, I SHOULD make some Christmas cookies for a gift / that party / to put in my face."
Therefore I've rounded up some Christmas cookies for you, and also ranked them in order of "easy-to-make" to "really-you're-going-try-that-right-now?" Click on the titles below for the complete recipes.
I give this a 10/10 for easy. You don't even need to bake them. And you get to eat a whole lot of the ingredients as you go! Make sure you put all those red and green cherries on top. They're what win you the 'oh, it's so Christmas-y' exclamations.
Sure, it's actually a slice, not a cookie. But people will have trouble telling you that with their mouths full of them anyway.
2. Christmas Thumbprint Cookies
I give these a 8/10 on the easy scale (1 being too tricky to think about right now, 10 being egg-on-toast easy). These are a little more fiddly as it's important to get them a nice uniform size and get the cherry on top but it's all pretty do-able at this late hour. The hardest part is having the almond meal and cherries in your pantry. Why do I never have them?
3. Best Christmas Rolled Sugar Cookies
OK, I'll be honest. These are a two-step cookie as you need for to let them cool down before you can ice them. BUT this year I put them straight in the fridge from the oven because I was really short on time, and iced them while I was quite "happy" on Vodka, and everything turned out OK! So you can make them in one-step. Kind of.
Therefore I'm going to give them a 6/10 on the easy scale (again 1 being the pain known as making fruit mince pies, 10 being heating baked beans in the microwave). There is two steps, but I really did the research on this recipe and if you have a a few hours you can get great results. Top tips:
- Get disposable icing bags (remembering more colours means you'll need more icing-tips, or have to do the icing in stages)
- The white is the easiest to write with as colouring (even gel) makes everything runnier
- Don't make snowman, making faces is hard, the bells and Christmas trees are much easier.
4. Gingerbread men (using ginger nuts recipe and rolling)
These are harder than the straight sugar cookies because of the faces... BUT if you were to use the same ginger snap recipe to make bells and trees and other Christmas-y things, then you're back at a 6/10 on the easy scale.
If you're going to make gingerbread men and cover them in flood icing (that's standard icing made with icing sugar, milk and vanilla essence and dunking them in) then wait for it to dry and write on top with royal icing (I know. So many things to wait for.). Well, for that I give that a 4/10 coz you may regret it if you haven't done this before.
Other honourable mentions go to Cherry Ripe Slice and Fruit Mince Pies (if you have a death wish). Also, my all time favourite gift if pressed for time is shortbread slice, it's always a crowd favourite.
Merry Christmas! May all your cookies be lightly golden on the edges and iced to perfection.
Aimee xx
