Celebrate the holidays with these colourful and fun Christmas sparkle cookies. A soft, dairy free butter cookie is coated in crunchy sparkle sugar making these a delicious treat that taste just as good as they look and will be a perfect addition to your holiday dessert table.
I love these cookies, they are just so fun and pretty and they remind me of glitter Christmas baubles thanks to the sparkly sugar coating.
You can really get creative with different colours to match your Christmas theme and the whole family will love rolling the cookie balls into the colourful sugar, but I do apologise in advance for the resulting mess!
For me, I simply couldn’t go wrong with classic red and green Christmas cookies and love how easy and festive these are to make.
Ingredients for Christmas sparkles
The base of these cookies is a really simple 6 ingredient butter cookie that’s going to use all your standard ingredients. The result is sweet and tender, almost cakey, to bite into with a little crunch thanks to the sugar coating.
- Plain flour – starting with regular plain flour or all purpose flour in the US
- Baking powder – just a little bit will give our cookies lift making sure they stay light not flat
- Dairy-free butter – we’re using a fair amount for these cookies for flavour but mostly for that super soft texture
- Sugar – white sugar helps keep the structure and allows the edges to get the perfect amount of crispness
- Egg – binds everything together to hold the structure and keeps the texture soft
- Vanilla extract – gives our cookies a delicious flavour
- Red, white and green sparkle sugar/sprinkles – to decorate you can choose the colours of sanding sugar or sparkle sugar you want to roll the cookies in.
How to make sparkle cookies
These cookies honestly are so easy to make. I’ve made so many batches of these and by following the below steps and tips you’ll have perfect cookies, every single time.
To make these cookies, I love to use my handheld electric mixer but you can also use a stand mixer to make things even easier. You’ll also need a couple of mixing bowls and a spatula. A cookie scoop (affiliate link) would also be very helpful (if you don’t already have one, then I highly recommend you put one on your Christmas list this year!).
Start by sifting together your flour and baking powder in one bowl. In the other bowl, beat together the dairy free butter and sugar with your electric mixer until super creamy and starting to be a bit paler in colour. Add in the vanilla extract and egg and continue mixing until all combined.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet and beat together until a soft dough forms. And that’s really it! Scrape down the sides of the bowl with your spatula and then place the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes – 1 hour to chill. This step is really important to ensure that your cookies don’t overspread in the oven.
Once the dough has been chilled, roll tablespoon amounts of the dough into balls and then into the sparkle sugar. Place the balls on a lined baking tray evenly spaced apart allowing enough room for the cookies to spread.
Gently press them down slightly so they are flat on top. Doing this will stop the cookies from domeing when cooking and create even, flat cookies.
Bake for around 13-15 minutes or until the edges are just starting to get a little golden colour. Note that all ovens are slightly different so make sure to keep an eye on them to prevent over cooking.
The cookies will still be soft when you take them out but will firm up on the tray as they cool. Once firm you can remove them from the tray and place on a wire rack to cool completely.
You can store cookies in an airtight container for up to 5 days. These cookies make great edible gifts, are the perfect holiday treat to take to office Christmas parties or just have out on a platter for guests over the holidays.
More Christmas cookies:
Vegan Cinnamon Sugar Cookies
Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies
Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies
Snowflake Sugar Cookies
Vegan Gingerbread Men
Classic Ginger Snap Biscuits
Snickerdoodle Cookies
Christmas Sparkle Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 ⅓ cups plain flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ cup (180 grams) dairy-free butter
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- red white and green sparkle sugar/sprinkles
Instructions
- In a medium sized bowl, sift flour and baking powder and set aside. In a large bowl, beat dairy-free butter and sugar with a handheld electric mixer until creamy. Add in vanilla and egg and continue beating until well combined.
- Add dry ingredients to the bowl and beat on low until the dough starts to come together, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as necessary. The dough will be quite soft. Chill the dough for 30 minutes before baking to stop the cookies from overspreading in the oven.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C and line 2 trays with baking paper. Roll tablespoons of dough into balls and then roll each in the sparkle sugar. Place the balls on the tray and press them down a little to flatten out. Place the dough balls evenly on the trays allowing enough room between them to spread slightly.
- Bake in a preheated oven for 13-15 minutes or until the edges are just starting to get a bit of colour. Let cool on the tray for 10 minutes to firm up before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Store cookies in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is provided as a guide only and is calculated using automated online tools, therefore we cannot guarantee the accuracy. We encourage you to make your own calculations based on the actual ingredients used in your recipe.
sherry
i love sparkles. these are so pretty.