10 Easy Christmas Cookie Recipes
I searched for 10 Easy Christmas Cookie Recipes for 2021 that I feel are budget-friendly.
How many of you remember your parents baking for Christmas and the smells? I do.
No more Christmas gifts that will collect dust or end up at the second-hand store.
I bought a lint shaver for $3 at Value Village, and the box still had the Christmas tag on it.
Please don’t waste your money on gifts that hold no value to someone or have no use.
We bake and hand out little Christmas cookies boxes to friends, family, coworkers, and neighbours.
Ultimately, the cheapest and most delicious Christmas cookie recipes are homemade.
I was looking for 10 Easy Christmas Cookie Recipes with these characteristics.
- Christmas Cookies with few ingredients
- Simple Christmas Cookie Recipes To Reduce Costs
- Old-Fashioned Christmas Cookies
- Cultural Christmas Cookies
- The Most Popular Christmas Cookies (what people searched for the most)
- Beginner Christmas Cookies for the new baker
Let’s look at the Christmas Cookie recipes I could find and a few of my own.
Keeping Baking Costs Low For Christmas
With financial struggles the past few years during the pandemic, budgeting for Christmas is critical.
Many people have lost jobs, are behind on bills and don’t even know how to have a Christmas.
Cookies are a fantastic hostess gift for visiting friends and families for the Christmas holidays.
You can buy delicious Christmas Cookies at the grocery store, but you’ll pay more for them.
Taking a spin to a local bakery will also cut into your baking and cooking budget.
Let me tell you a little secret to keep our Christmas Budget on a plan.
- We save money all year in a Christmas fund
- During the year we buy the ingredients when they go on sale.
For example, if butter is on sale for $2.99, we stock up and put them in a freezer bag.
Stock Up Your Pantry For Christmas Cookies
Below are other baking ingredients to keep your eyes out for with long expiry or that you can freeze.
- Nuts- Kirkland Walnuts, Kirkland Peanuts, Kirkland Macadamia nuts etc.
- Condensed milk
- Spices but skip the grocery store and visit International stores such as an Indian, Chinese, Italian and other independent grocers.
- Almond flour, All-Purpose Flour , Coconut Flour and Cake and Pastry Flour – Costco has the best deals
- Molasses, granulated sugar, brown sugar, keto certified sugars again are cheap at Costco Canada
- Parchment Paper, Tinfoil, Cookie Containers (Dollar Store) – Best prices at Costco
- Icing colours
- Baking powder and Baking Soda I buy from Amazon
- Baking Sheets and cooling racks are a must – Canadian Tire or Amazon have the best prices
- Red and Green Cherries in jars or containers at Bulk Barn, Costco or the grocery store.
- Organic Cocoa powder is definitely delicious and inexpensive at Costco.
- Pure Vanilla cheapest at Costco or Amazon
- Pure Almond Extract I bought on Amazon because we only use small amounts.
- Pitted Dates best prices at the grocery stores such as Food Basics
- Figs or dried figs you might want to check an Italian grocer or the grocery store.
I’m sure there are many more ingredients to make Christmas cookies and bars that you’ll need.
Those listed above are what we typically need for our Christmas baking list.
Easy Christmas Cookies With Few Ingredients
Shortbread cookies of all kinds are simple to make with few ingredients.
Other cookies such as chocolate chip cookies and many bar recipes are inexpensive to make.
Take my Classic date square recipe, for example. It’s an easy Christmas recipe and costs about $10 to make.
If you go to a bakery and ask to buy 24 date squares, you’ll undoubtedly pay more than $10.
Let’s be honest when it comes to Christmas Cookies. I have yet to meet anyone who dislikes holiday cookies and treats.
What better way to show off your baking talents would be baking Christmas Cookies to gift people.
We do this for the adults on our Christmas list, so we give them something they will enjoy.
I mentioned above that I felt it was essential to find Christmas Cookies for the beginner baker.
Not everyone is confident when baking, but you can make some no-fail Christmas cookies.
If you’re new to Christmas baking stick with recipes that have few ingredients.
2021 Christmas Cookies On Our Baking List
I’ve shared many recipes for Christmas cookies and other holiday recipes.
Christmas Cookies are a part of our holiday sweets table and we gift them to friends, family and coworkers rather than a duster they pretend to like.
What’s interesting is when you have a traditional cookie, you’ll always make it.
We create one new recipe to add to the Christmas baking list each year.
For 2021 we will be making the following cookies, balls and donuts. (they are round like a cookie) lol
- Pecan Snowball Cookies that are round like a ball
- Italian Anginetti Lemon Cookies (very easy to make)
- Walnut Snowball Cookies the same as the peacan but swapping the nuts
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls with red cherries, walnuts and lots of chocolate
- Italian Potato Donuts are a must because they are so good.
- Cherry Biscotti or Cranberry Orange (not sure yet)
- Keto Cranberry Lemon Custard Bars
- Festive NO Bake Coconut Balls
- Keto Butter Tarts
I’m also attempting to make a British Pudding which almost every Brit has for Christmas.
The only catch is that it will cost a bit of money to make as it’s soaked in lots of alcohol.
Anginetti Italian Lemon Cookies
This is a classic Italian cookie that is made in almost all Italian households.
What I liked about this cookie was how easy it is to make and transitioning it to gluten-free was simple.
1. Cardamon Cookies (Melts In Your Mouth)
I LOVE cardamon not only because I’ve been to India twice, but Indian food is my favourite.
We have more Indian restaurants than Chinese food restaurants in Canada.
I grew up eating Indian food, and it was the ease of baking, low price and loads of flavours.
Cardamon Cookies are crispy and sweet and just enough to satisfy your cooking craving.
According to Maria Doss, the owner at Kitchen@Hoskins, the best part is the need for minimal kitchen tools.
These cookies need only five ingredients! A WIN for a beautiful Christmas cookie platter.
If you’re someone like me who has never made Sugar Cookie Icing, I found a recipe that is a no-fail.
2. Classic Pizzelle Recipe Popular For Christmas
The Pizzelle cookies are thin, round and look like giant snowflakes.
We have a pizzelle machine here, and we’ve made them many times.
They are easy to make, inexpensive, and add various flavours to the recipe.
These are classic pizzelle from Unsophisticook, which says they are waffle cookies.
The Pizzelle Christmas cookie recipe calls for only six ingredients.
his classic pizzelle recipe produces light & crispy Italian waffle cookies using a pizzelle iron! Tips for how to make pizzelle cookies + variations.
Marie Doss
3. Simple Christmas Crinkle Cookies
I’ve never tried Christmas cookies such as the crinkle, but I sure have heard of them.
This recipe looks beautiful on a platter and only needs six ingredients to make.
The baker behind these Christmas Crinkle cookies is Aimee from Navigating Life With Kids.
4 . Raspberry Almond Thumbprint Cookies
Thumbprint cookies are inexpensive to make, have few ingredients, and you can switch them up.
The blogger who created this recipe used a raspberry jam which I’ve tried and is delicious.
I’ve also tried thumbprint Christmas Cookie recipes such as mint jelly or even strawberry and blueberry.
5. Dundurn Castle Shortbread Christmas Cookie Recipe
You will hear that these Christmas Cookie Recipes are my favourite so add this to the list.
We visited Dundurn Castle when my mum and dad came to Canada, and I managed to get the recipe.
I tried it at home, and it was perfect and tasted just like what we sampled at the castle.
6. Easy Chewy Snickerdoodles Christmas Cookie Recipes
For years I’ve been telling all of you that I’ve never tried a snickerdoodle cookie, but I think the time is right.
I had no idea how easy a Snickerdoodle cookie recipe was to make, and now I know it has few ingredients.
For this snickerdoodle cookie recipe, you’ll need ten ingredients, most of what you’ll already have stocked in your pantry.
7. Soft and Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies
These remind me of back home in the U.K., which is why I stopped and had a read of the recipe.
Although this recipe has 14 ingredients, they are all simple pantry ingredients, such as the following.
Fiona from the blog Just So Tasty always has delicious recipes, as I’ve been to her website many times.
As you can see, we are making a simple cookie with plenty of spices, which makes this one of my favourite Christmas cookie recipes.
It’s no wonder she has over 105,000 shares on Pinterest for this simple recipe.
Below are only a few of the simple spices that you’ll find in this Ginger Molasses Cookie.
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
8. White Chocolate Peanut Holiday Haystack Cookies
These White Chocolate Peanut Holiday Haystack Cookies are budget-friendly with only four ingredients.
We’ve made haystack recipes many times but most during Christmas because they are fast and cheap.
Although, we used a mix of semi-sweet chocolate chips and milk chocolate chips with the chow mein noodles, pretzel sticks and Christmas MandM’s.
Essentially, you melt the chocolate and add chow mein noodles, peanuts or other nuts.
You scoop mounds of the mixture on parchment paper-lined baking sheets and let them freeze.
Making Christmas cookie recipes ahead of time is a great way to enjoy the holidays without the mess.
The favourite part about the haystack cookie is the variations for different holidays.
Beth from Small Town Woman’s blog goes over the varieties of haystack cookies you can make.
9. Easy Christmas Gumdrop Nougat Candy
The Christmas gumdrop colours and the nougat scream holiday sweets.
Unfortunately, I struggled to find the gumdrops for this recipe; however, you can use Dots and sugar gumdrops.
I’LL CHECK THE BULK since I want to make a gumdrop nougat candy and gumdrop cookies batch.
I know this isn’t technically a cookie recipe, but I felt it needed to be here, plus it’s only four ingredients.
My wife’s best friend loves this nougat and had us bring some back from the U.K. for her.
This batch will make about 60 bite sized nougat candies, so if you’re not serving them right away, you might consider freezing this treat!
Layer the cut pieces of nougat between pieces of parchment paper and place in an air tight container, and put them into the freezer.
When you’re ready to serve, let them sit for about 1 hour or more after freezing, to bring them to room temperature.
A Pretty Life In The Suburbs
10. Christmas Pinwheel Cookies
I talked to one reader on Facebook about Pinwheel cookies and how I’ve never tried them.
Well, I stumbled upon my final cookie to add to the Christmas Cookie Recipes list.
Amy at House Of Nash is the creator of this Pinwheel cookie, and I think I will try this recipe.
Again this cookie recipe has ten ingredients but nothing ordinary for a baking pantry.
My Top 10 Christmas Cookie Recipes
I think I did a pretty good job looking for Christmas Cookie Recipes on Pinterest.
Pinterest is one of the biggest and best search engines globally and where I spend lots of time.
If you’d like to follow me on Pinterest, you can find me at this link https://www.pinterest.ca/cdnbudgetbinder/_created/.
Would you please let me know if you are a food blogger and would like to contribute to my boards?
Before I go, I want to share a few more photos of what Christmas Recipes I’ll be making.
Discussion: Please comment below and tell me what Christmas Cookies you’ll be making, and are they for guests to eat or gifts?
Keto Butter Tarts
A trendy recipe on Pinterest makes me happy because it took forever to find the perfect recipe.
I want to let anyone know who bakes Keto recipes to rest for two days.
I always freeze anything I bake that is keto-friendly as I always found them to be their best on day two.
Keto Italian Biscotti Cookies
Italian Biscotti Cookies are a must for all Italians during the Christmas holidays.
I love biscotti in the morning with my coffee since I’m a dunker, haha.
The hardest part is to stop dunking because I tend to dip until most of my coffee is gone.
I know it’s terrible, but I love cookies, all cookies. I’m a cookie monster; just ask Mrs. CBB.
White Chocolate Dipped Cranberry Orange Biscotti With Lemon Drizzle
The mixture of flavours in this crunchy orange and cranberry work well together.
You’ll find many Italian recipes that use fresh orange juice or orange peel.
I even add orange peel into our Italian Potato Donuts and dunk them in sugar while they are hot.
That’s all for now because I know I can keep sharing so many delicious Christmas treats.
P.S. For even more ideas, visit Top 5 Christmas Cookies
Happy Holidays,
Mr. CBB
