Christmas cookies: the most classic and (always) the most desired homamade gifts!
I have a real passion for Christmas cookies: I love preparing them listening Christmas songs and I really think that cookies are even better with this background music! Don’t you think the same?
…Christmas is magic… 🙂
The Classic Christmas cookies are always my favorite homemade gift idea! These are also very easy to make and obviously perfect to be prepared with your children!
They are made of a typical italian shortcrust pastry that will remain in your heart: prepared ONLY WITH YOLKS AND WITH ICING SUGAR. This is the secret to have a delicious shortcrust pastry that melts in your mouth!
So today I show you my Christmas cookies: the ones I have been making every year for many, many years!
Only 2 doughs for 8 different types of biscuits!
With the VANILLA DOUGH I made
- Christmas trees decorated with melted chocolate,
- Christmas trees stuffed with nutella and decorated with smarties balls,
- hazelnut stars
- cinnamon stars.
With the GINGER DOUGH I made:
- raisin cookies,
- chocolate chips cookies,
- mushrooms decorated with dark and white chocolate and chopped hazelnuts
- star comets dipped in chocolate.
Tips and tricks
- You can prepare the doughs by hand, with the mixer or with the Thermomix.
- The minimum resting time of the shortcrust pastry is 1 hour, but you can obviously prepare it up to 3 days before and keeping it in the refrigerator well wrapped in film.
- You can also prepare the dough even earlier and freeze it.
- In the recipe I put first the method for the vanilla cookies and then the one for the ginger cookies, but to optimize the times I recommend preparing the two doughs together.
Now let’s go to the recipe! Obviously I put CHRISTMAS DOSES to prepare big quantities of cookies so you can put them in different gift packages and/or even for your homemade advent calendar!

CHRISTMAS COOKIES
Ingredients
For the vanilla shortcrust pastry cookies with icing sugar:
- 750 gr OO flour
- 140 gr cornstarch
- 500 gr butter
- 300 gr vanilla icing sugar
- 9 medium egg yolks (or 7 yolks + 1 egg)
- vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons of milk
- 20 toasted hazelnuts
- nutella or jam
- brown sugar
- cinnamon powder
- 100 gr dark chocolate
- smarties.
For the ginger shortcrust pastry cookies with icing sugar:
- 350 gr flour 00
- 160 gr butter
- 4 large egg yolks
- 200 gr icing brown sugar
- 3 teaspoons of ginger powder
- 30 g raisins
- 40 gr of chocolate chips
- 100 gr dark chocolate
- 30 g white chocolate
- chopped hazelnuts.
Instructions
For the vanilla cookies:
- Prepare the shortcrust pastry: sift the flour and starch together, pour them into a large bowl and add the vanilla and icing sugar. Stir and add the cold butter in chunks.
- Work with your fingertips, rubbing the ingredients to get a floury dough.
- At this point add the egg yolks and knead getting a homogeneous mixture.
- Form a ball, wrap it in film and put it in the fridge for 1 hour.
- After this time, turn on the oven to 190 °C.
- Divide the shortcrust pastry into 2 parts and roll out one at a time into a not too thin disk on a generously floured surface.
- Cut out the cookies with the molds you prefer: I used Christmas tree and stars.
For Christmas trees decorated with chocolate and for those stuffed and decorated with smarties balls:
- you just have to cut out the trees and place them on the baking sheet lined with paper.
For the hazelnut stars:
- cut out the biscuits, place them on the baking sheet, brush them with a little milk and place a toasted hazelnut in the center.
For the cinnamon stars:
- cut out the biscuits, place them on the baking sheet, brush them with a little milk and sprinkle them with a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar mixed with a teaspoon of cinnamon.
- Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes.
- Let them cool well without moving them from the pan, then pair some christmas tree together with nutella.
- Melt the chocolate, insert it in a paper cone or in a pastry pen and draw lines on the trees as if to remember the string of lights that you normally put on your Christmas tree. Decorate the stuffed ones with smarties.
For the ginger cookies:
- The procedure is the same: sift the flour, pour it into a large bowl and add the ginger and the brown icing sugar. Stir and add the cold butter in chunks.
- Work with your fingertips, rubbing the ingredients to get a floury dough.
- At this point add the egg yolks and knead getting a homogeneous mixture.
- Form a ball, wrap it in film and put it in the fridge for 1 hour.
- After this time, turn on the oven to 190 °C.
For the raisin cookies:
- take back the ginger shortcrust pastry and weigh 150 gr. Add the raisins and knead again. Form a cylinder, wrap it in film and put it in the freezer for 20 minutes.
- Cut out the biscuits thick enough using a heavy kitchen knife and bake at 190 °C for 10 minutes. I got 8 cookies.
For the chocolate chip cookies:
- weigh 200 gr of ginger shortcrust pastry and add the chocolate chips. Knead again, form a cylinder, wrap it in film and put it in the freezer for 20 minutes.
- Cut out the cookies thick enough using a heavy kitchen knife and bake at 190 °C for 10 minutes. If you like, once cold, you can brush only one side of the cookies with melted dark chocolate. I got 12 cookies.
For the comets and mushrooms:
- roll out the remaining shortcrust pastry to a thickness of about half a cm. Cut out the biscuits with the relative molds, place them on a baking tray lined with paper and bake them in a hot oven at 190 °C for 10 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and let them cool well without moving them from the pan.
- Reduce the dark chocolate into flakes and melt it in a double boiler. Put it in a tall and narrow container (I used a brick to serve the milk) and dip the final part of the tail of the comets. Put them to dry on a wire rack placed on aluminum foil, so that they lose the excess chocolate.
- Brush the cap of all the mushrooms with dark chocolate, then smear the brush with melted white chocolate and brush it over the dark chocolate creating the effect of irregular color (because Ludovica rightly pointed out me that the cap of porcini mushrooms it’s not of a homogeneous color!). Finally, decorate the mushrooms with a little chopped hazelnuts. Let it dry well.
- I got 12 mushrooms and 12 comet stars.
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