Christmas Cookie Tree

5 from 1 vote

Christmas Cookie Tree

This Christmas Cookie Tree is made with thick, soft sugar cookies decorated with homemade sanding sugar, and assembled into an impressive Christmas Tree.

Prep Time10

Cook Time16

Chilling Time30

Total Time56

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: Christmas Cookie Tree

Calories: 3236kcal

Author: Lauren Skardal

Ingredients

Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour 280g

Sanding Sugar

½ cup + 2 tbsp granulated sugar divided
15 drops green food coloring
4 drops yellow food coloring

Instructions

Note: This recipe requires that you have a set of concentric star-shaped cookie cutters.
Make the Dough: In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks, vanilla extract, and salt, and combine. Add the flour and combine
Chill the Dough: Shape the dough into a ball, then flatten it into a thick rectangular slab. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour or overnight.
Make the Sanding Sugar: In a medium bowl, add ½ cup granulated sugar and 12-15 drops of green food coloring (you can also use green food gel). Use the back of the spoon to mash the food coloring into the sugar, continuing to work it in until all bits of the coloring are dispersed and the sugar looks a bright, vibrant green.
To make the yellow sanding sugar, combine 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar and about 4 drops of yellow food coloring, and use the back of a spoon to mash the food coloring into the sugar.
Preheat the Oven: When ready to make the cookies, preheat the oven to 350°F.
Roll Out and Cut the Dough: Place the dough on a clean work surface sprinkled with flour. Sprinkle the top of the dough and the rolling pin with flour and roll out the dough so that it is just slightly less than ½ inch thick.
If the dough is too cold, let it sit out at room temperature for 15-20 minutes to warm up. Use the star cookie cutters to cut out one star per cookie cutter size, starting with the largest cookie cutter and working your way to the smallest cookie cutter.
After cutting the first set of stars, scrunch up the dough and roll it out a second time to fit the second set of stars. Cut two of the smallest-sized stars. One will be green and placed flat at the top of the tree, and one will be yellow (gold) and stand upright on top of the tree.
Save a tiny bit of raw cookie dough to use as glue to glue the yellow star to the top of the Christmas Cookie Tree.
Place the largest stars on one baking sheet and the smaller stars on a second baking sheet. Because of the size difference, they will bake at slightly different times.
Decorate the Cookies: Using a spoon and your fingers, cover all but one of the two smallest stars in green sanding sugar. Cover the other smallest star in yellow sanding sugar. Press the sugar into the cookie very lightly (you do not need to press hard) with the back of a spoon. The sugar will melt slightly in the oven and adhere to the cookies
Bake the larger-sized cookies in the oven at 350°F for 8-9 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and immediately take the same cookie cutters to recut the cookies while they are still warm out of the oven. This will give the cookies nice crisp edges as they will have spread ever so slightly in the oven.
Bake the baking sheet with the smaller stars for 7-8 minutes. Remove and recut each cookie with the appropriately sized cookie cutter. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet before removing them.
To assemble the Christmas Cookie Tree: Place the largest star at the bottom. This can be done on a plate, cake stand, or other surface, like a cardboard circle wrapped in wax paper.
Continue to stack the star cookies on top of each other, moving from largest to smallest, and turning each cookie slightly so that the points of the stars do not overlap the cookie underneath.
Place the cookie with the yellow sanding sugar on the top. You can attach the yellow cookie with a bit of icing if you have some, or with a tiny bit of leftover raw cookie dough (be sure not to eat the raw cookie dough). Alternatively, cut off one point of the yellow star so that it will sit flat on top of the Christmas Cookie Tree. Set out and display!

Notes

Measuring Flour: Use a kitchen scale to measure the flour if possible. If there’s too much flour, it's hard to roll out the dough; too little and the cookies will spread in the oven. This can be corrected by adding a small amount of water if the dough cracks when rolling it out, or adding a small amount of flour if the dough is too soft.

Chilling the Dough: Shaping the dough into a flat rectangle helps the dough chill faster, and it makes it easier to roll it out after it has cooled.

Icing: If you want an alternative to homemade sanding sugar, you can make royal icing, use store-bought decorating icing, or make buttercream frosting. I've found that store-bought sanding sugar does not adhere as well to the cookies.

Extra Cookies: Cut out additional stars or other shapes with the excess dough for snacking on, decorating, or as backup if any of the cookies break while assembling (This is unlikely. They are soft but sturdy cookies).

Cookies Spreading: Recut the cookies while they are still warm out of the oven. Recutting the cookies is optional, as the spread in the oven is minimal, but it gives the cookies nice, sharp edges to define the shape of the tree.

Nutrition