Christmas Cookies are simple buttery and chewy cookies loaded with festive M&Ms, peppermint, and sprinkles. Ready in 25 minutes or less!
This simple recipe is sure to become one of your favorite Cookies to bake for the holidays. They’re similar to these Christmas M&M Cookies, but with the addition of holiday sprinkles and candy cane pieces for even more holiday cheer!
These M&M and Candy Cane Cookies have a classic cookie base that’s somewhere between Delicious Sugar Cookies or a Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe. You can bake them with gooey centers or make them slightly more crispy depending on how long you bake them. They’re made with simple ingredients like butter, sugar, and vanilla extract. Then the classic flavors of peppermint, chocolate, and fun sprinkles get added in to make them the perfect sweet treats for the holidays.
Serve them at a holiday party with other classic cookies like Gingerbread Cookies, Shortbread, or Butter Cookies. The M&Ms and sprinkles make these colorful cookies the perfect bright addition to your cookie plate that’s sure to get everyone in the holiday spirit. You can also package this special holiday treat up to give to friends and family as an edible gift, or bring the stunning cookies to your next cookie exchange.
The great thing about this recipe is that you can throw together a batch of cookies in practically no time and enjoy your favorite cookies throughout the holiday season. Plus, if you want to get ahead on baking for the holidays, you can always make the dough ahead of time. Scoop it onto the cookie sheet and flash freeze the dough balls for a couple of hours before putting them in a freezer bag for up to 2 months. That way they’re ready to bake whenever you need a dessert.
More Cookie Recipes
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
Triple Chocolate Cookies
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Frequently Asked Questions About Christmas Cookies
It is important to soften the butter so that it can be creamed in the bowl when you mix the sugar in for 2 minutes. This allows tiny air pockets to form in the dough, which makes your cookies cook evenly and remain fluffy. If the butter is melted into a liquid, or is still too hard, the air pockets won’t form during that 2 minutes of mixing.
A cookie scoop looks very much like an ice cream scoop, but it is smaller. It will allow for you to scoop out your cookies to be the same size each and every time.
Sifting your flour with the other dry ingredients will make the ingredients lighter, easier to mix, and will ensure they are evenly distributed in the dough. It will also eliminate any lumps in the mixture.
How to Make Christmas Cookies
- Prep Time: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line your cookie sheet with parchment paper so that the cookies don’t stick to the pan. You also want to take the butter out of the fridge to make sure it has time to soften before starting the recipe.
- Dough: Add the softened butter and white sugar to the stand mixer. Cream butter at medium speed for about 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Then mix in the egg and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl sift together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Once the dry ingredients are combined, add them to the butter mixture. Turn the stand mixer to its lowest speed setting and mix until just combined.
- Mix-Ins: To crush the candy canes, you can put them in a zip lock bag and break them apart with a rolling pin, or pulse them in a food processor until they’re in chunks. Then stir most of the M&Ms, peppermint pieces, and festive sprinkles into the dough. Leave a few of the M&M candies to the side to add over the top later.
- Baking Time: Use a cookie scoop to form the dough into balls. Place the cookie scoops on the cookie sheet with about 2 inches between each one. Then press a few M&Ms into the top of each one. Bake for 8 minutes to make soft cookies with a gooey center or for 10 minutes for more crunchy cookies. Let them cool for 5 minutes before using a spatula to remove them from the baking sheet.
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Variations
- Dark Chocolates: For some dark chocolate flavor added into the delicious cookies, you can add in some dark chocolate M&Ms or mix in other kinds of dark chocolates with dark chocolate chunks or dark chocolate chips.
- White Chocolate: The holiday flavors would also taste great with white chocolate, so you could add in some delicious white chocolate chips.
- Peanut Butter Flavor: If you want to add some peanut butter goodness to the recipe, use peanut butter M&Ms or peanut butter chips. However, the peanut butter flavor won’t taste good with the peppermint, so you’ll want to leave the peppermint out.
- More Peppermint Flavor: If you like a stronger peppermint flavor you can add some peppermint extract and use extra peppermint candies in your cookie recipe.
- Gluten-Free: If you want to make the recipe gluten-free, you can replace the white flour in the recipe with almond flour, oat flour, coconut flour, or any of your favorite gluten-free flour substitutes.
- Vanilla Icing: To make easy vanilla icing as a topping for this recipe, you can whisk together 1 cup powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons milk, and ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract. If the icing is too thick add extra milk until it reaches the right consistency. Then drizzle the icing over the cookies and let them harden before serving. The peppermint candies will also look great sprinkled over the icing.
More Holiday Desserts
Peppermint Bark Brownies
Shortbread Cookies
Molasses Cookies
Ginger Cookie Bars
How to Store
- Serve: You can keep these M&M and Candy Cane Cookies at room temperature for up to 3 days. Just wait for them to cool down, then cover them in plastic wrap to keep them soft and moist.
- Store: For slightly longer storage, you can put the buttery cookies in an airtight container and store them in the fridge for up to 1 week.
- Freeze: Another option is freezing them. Put the cookies in a freezer-safe storage bag. They’ll stay good for up to 3 months.
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter , softened
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 3/4 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup Christmas M&M candies
- 1/2 cup crushed peppermint candies
- 1/4 cup Christmas sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a stand mixer cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
- Add in the egg and vanilla extract until smooth.
- Sift together flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
- Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture on the lowest speed setting until just combined.
- Stir in most of the Christmas M&Ms, the peppermint candies, and the Christmas sprinkles.
- Add a heaping teaspoon of rolled cookie dough per cookie to the sheet, 2 inches apart.
- Press a few M&M candies into the top of each cookie dough ball.
- Bake for 8 minutes for soft cookies or 10 minutes for crunchy cookies.
- Let cool 5 minutes before removing from the baking sheet.
Nutrition
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My family is visiting right now so I made these for us and we all could not get enough of them.
One of the best cookie recipes I have tried. It’s easy to make and very delicious! Thanks, Sabrina, we enjoyed this amazing recipe. I’ll definitely make them again!
These cookies are so timely! They’re so cute and I had fun making them. My family also enjoyed it. Thanks for the wonderful recipe Sabrina, we’ll surely have these for Christmas.