4 Tips for Making Holiday Cookies

Louisa read my mind with her guest post today… Baking holiday cookies is on my list of things I want to do! I love that cookies are a universally loved gift! They are thoughtful and personal… and even fun to make (if you don’t less the stress of the holidays get to you!).

4 Tips for Making Holiday Cookies

Guest post by Louisa from Living Lou

The holiday season is in full-force and to me, that means my kitchen basically turns into a cookie factory. I’ve been making hundreds of cookies to give out to friends, family and neighbors for about five years now. It takes a lot of time and hard work, but everyone loves them and it’s such a great way to spread holiday cheer. If you’re planning on making cookies this year, I have five tips that will help make this process as fun and stress-free as possible. 

1. Decide on the cookies ahead of time

I always make a variety of 4 or 5 cookies – this makes a cookie spread much more visually appealing and makes sure that there is a cookie for everyone. I’m very conscious of the cookies I choose to make and opt to make a couple more labour-intensive, decorated cookies (I always make sugar cookies with royal icing), and simpler, drop-cookies which are much easier to make and the flavor combination (orange, cranberry and chocolate) still festive. 

2. Use your freezer

This is one of the best tips: make dough a couple of weeks in advance and freeze it. This will save you time and you’ll thank yourself when you’re knee deep in flour and butter. Just take the dough out of the freezer the night before and let it thaw in the fridge, then scoop and bake like you would any other time. I find my chocolate ginger molasses cookies to be a dough that freezes well. Keep in mind that more delicate cookies won’t freeze as well. 

3. Have a decorating strategy

I find decorating cookies to be the most labour-intensive part of the process and because working with royal icing is a two step process, I’ve found that spreading it out over two days is what works best for me. Once the cookies have cooled, I will outline the border with royal icing and let it set and dry overnight, the next day I’ll use flood icing to fill them and decorate them with any sprinkles or candies. 

4. Try something new 

I know you’re not supposed to try a new recipe when you’re having people over but when it comes to holiday cookies, every year I pick a new recipe to try. If you want to try something with a bit of a holiday-spin that is an easy recipe, my black currant tea shortbread are the perfect recipe.