Festive Christmas Tree Cookies! Made with a soft and chewy sugar cookie style base, a simple buttery frosting and decorated as pretty pine trees. An easy cookie that's fun for people of all ages to help with.
Servings: 8
Prep30 minutesminutes
Cooling1 hourhour
Ready in: 1 hourhour30 minutesminutes
Ingredients
Cookies
1 1/3cups (186g)unbleached all-purpose flour(scoop and level to measure)
Green food coloring**, Christmas sprinkles and 8 1 1/2-inch broken pretzel rod pieces (optional)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan or cake pan, line with a round of parchment paper and butter parchment paper. Dust pan lightly with flour then shake out excess.
In a medium mixing bowl whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment blend together butter and granulated sugar until combined. Scrape down bowl.
Mix in egg, then mix in 1 tsp vanilla and the almond extract. Scrape down bowl.
Add flour mixture and mix until combined.
Scoop dough into prepared pan. Spray hands with non-stick cooking spray then spread dough into an even layer in pan.
Bake in preheated oven until set, about 14 - 16 minutes.
If sides are a little higher after baking you can flatten down with the bottom of a measuring cup. Let cookie cool completely on a wire rack (about 1 hour).
To make the frosting in a medium mixing bowl using an electric hand mixer blend together powdered sugar, butter, milk and 1/2 tsp vanilla until well combined. Tint with food coloring if using.
Transfer frosting to a resealable bag, seal bag while pressing excess air out. Cut one small corner from the bottom edge, set aside.
Run a small sharp knife along edge of the cookie in pan to ensure it's loose. If you used a springform pan remove then ring, if you used a cake pan the invert cookie onto a cutting board (it make take some forceful tapping on bottom or dropping pan upside down to help coax it out).
Cut cookie into 8 wedges, then trim rounded ends if desired.
Decorate cookies with frosting, sprinkles and pretzel pieces for tree trunks if using. Just gently press pretzel into cookie if using.
Notes
*If you don't want to use almond extract just increase vanilla in cookie dough to 1 1/2 tsp. It's not essential here, it just adds a nice light flavor.
**I like to use gel food coloring because it's more concentrated but liquid works too.
I have also cut the the whole portion into 10 pieces instead of 8 if you need just a couple more.
If you don't have a stand mixer an electric hand mixer would work fine for this recipe too.