My Christmas Cookie Collections

by Ilona Erwin | Christmas, Recipes

Here is a compilation of my many Christmas cookie recipes online. From a curation of my best to single recipes on special pages, I am gathering them together in this index page.

Over the years I published many of my favorite Christmas cookie collections; both to share with others and to have a backup resource accessible to family members in order to bake their favorites. HINT: you may want to bookmark this page for future reference!

My children have their own friends and family, and it is now rare for my big family to be able to gather together as we once did. but we can relive Proustian moments through our cherished recipes and traditions.

These recipes are in blog posts scattered around my websites. Because I have made these sites and blogs over a long period of time, the published pages are far-flung across the World Wide Web. Some are no longer published in the original sites. (Squidoo, for example)

Here is a compendium of those pages:

• • Best Ever Christmas Cookies my choice of the most impressive and special Christmas cookies to bake
  • Favorite Spice Cookie Collection all recipes are cookies that feature spice flavors
  • Moravian Spice Cookies (the recipe is included below, but the page on this historical Christmas cookie is so interesting)
  • A Molasses Cookie Recipe with Advent devotional thoughts
  • Magic Cookie Bars with Advent devotional for December 8th
  • Christmas Decorating with a Gingerbread theme has a basic gingerbread recipe included.

I like the simplicity of the recipes which you can print easily, too, so I am working on having all produced within an easily printable recipe format.

I try to include Amazon affiliate links to products for two reasons:

1. They are a convenience and help to my readers
2. Those readers who click on them will help support my writing. The hosting fees are more expensive and the income has dropped to almost nothing.

I have purchased and used many of the products I recommend. All are assessed by me, personally, without being sponsored by any brand.

Here is one of those easily printed recipes for those want to “just get baking” right now!

Moravian Spice Cookies

Moravian Spice Cookies

These are our family favorites. Deeply satisfying molasses flavor and a firm, thin cookie that makes a beautiful base for simple royal icing decoration. You may substitute reconstituted powdered egg whites for fresh, if you wish.

This dough is refrigerated overnight, like many cutout cookie recipes. Keeping dough cool helps when rolling it thin.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Cook Time 8 minutes mins

Overnight chilling 1 day d

Total Time 1 day d 8 minutes mins

Servings: 3 dozen

Course: Cookies

Cuisine: Czech

Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients

  

Dough:

• 4 cups flour sifted
• 1 cup light molasses
• ½ cup butter softened
• ½ cup light brown sugar packed
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon ground allspice
• ½ teaspoon cloves
•  ½ teaspoon  salt

For Royal Frosting

• ⅓ cup egg whites (about 2 eggs)
• 3¾ to 4 cups confectioners sugar sifted

Method

 

Make the dough:

1. Sift the flour with the baking soda, salt, and spices. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, beat the brown sugar, butter, and molasses until well combined.
3. With a wooden spoon, stir in part of the flour mixture make a soft dough. Then, with your hands, mix in as much of the rest to make a stiff dough. (Until it is well combined).

   Form the dough into a ball. Wrap in saran wrap or wax paper and refrigerate overnight.

Make cookies:

1. The next day, preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease cookie sheets.
2. Divide the dough into 4 parts. Refrigerate until ready to roll out.
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thick.
4. Use cookie cutters in your favorite shapes to cut out cookies.
5. Place cookies 1 inch apart on cookie sheets and bake 6-8 minutes. Transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool.

Frost the cookies

1. Make the frosting: In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites with the powdered sugar to make a smooth, stiff frosting. Add more sugar if necessary. Cover with a damp cloth until ready to use.
2. Decorate the cookies: Pipe the frosting through #4 writing tip outlining cookies and making polka-dots.

Notes

The Moravian spice dough is stiff. It should be rolled very thin and not overbaked. This cooky keeps well and is very nice with a hot drink for dunking.  

• Use unsulphured molasses. Several brands are good: Grandma's and Brer Rabbit are two I've used.
• If you wrap the dough in waxed paper or Saran wrap, it will keep refrigerated for a number of days.
• Cover the royal icing in a tightly covered container to keep it moist. It dries out very quickly.
• You can flavor the icing (try lemon) if you wish, and sprinkle with "snowy" decorative sugar.

Baking Tips and Tools

I use Airbake cookie sheets because they do make a difference in the quality of your cookies. Important when you consider the time and expense that goes into making really great Christmas cookies.

For truly authentic and delicious Moravians you need to roll them out quite thinly, and that makes the edges more likely to burn. a cookie sheet like this will help prevent burnt edges and give an evenly baked cookie. I like the way the bottoms of the cookies are evenly browned.