Hey Besties! We’ve all seen the ugly Christmas sweaters and maybe you’ve worn one yourself! I’ve been to many ugly Christmas sweater parties over the years and I’m not about to share the photos! Ha! But today we’re translating the fun into ugly Christmas sweater cookies! What is so fun about these is that there are literally no rules! Let your imagination run wild and the crazier the better! Ever since I made these, I’ve been so excited to share them with you! I hope these provide you some inspiration to create your own Christmas sweater cookies!
Cutter & Design
For these adorable cookies, I used the cutter from THIS set. I use all these cutters several times over the holiday season and love them! I also love that this sweater cutter has a turtleneck in the design…a critical element to a great ugly Christmas sweater cookie!
Creating and planning my different sweater designs was really fun! Think about all the things that come to your mind when you think about Christmas and then throw them all into your designs! Consider vests, different textures with sanding sugar or luster dust too. They can be as beautiful or as ugly as YOU want.
Recipes
I used our delicious and cozy cinnamon sugar cookie recipe for these, which I will share below. The cinnamon spice emulsion is the key to the yumminess of these cookies. I use this emulsion is MANY different things; I love it, it smells and tastes SO good! For royal icing, I used our go-to vanilla recipe which pairs beautifully to let the cinnamon spice flavor shine!
If you’re newer to decorating with royal icing, I used a flood consistency for the base colors and then a stiffer consistency for the decorating details. THIS post may be helpful for you too since nailing consistencies is the biggest hurdle when decorating with royal icing.
Design Inspiration
Without further ado, enjoy these fantastically ugly Christmas sweater cookies! Ugly is definitely in the eye of the beholder, right?!
These cookies make me smile every time I look at them! I hope they do the same for you! I also hope you love this recipe as much as we do around here! Happy Holiday Baking, Besties!!
Cinnamon Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup Unsalted Butter Room Temperature
- 1 cup Granulated White Sugar
- 1.5 tsp Cinnamon Spice Emulsion
- 1 Egg Room Temperature
- 2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 3.5 cups All-Purpose Flour
Instructions
- If I know I’ll be baking, I pull my unsalted butter out of the fridge the night before to get to room temp. But if you’re baking spontaneously, no worries, just zap your butter in the microwave on half-power for about 12 seconds.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- I use parchment paper sheets on my cookie sheets and reuse them for all my batches that day.
- In your mixer bowl (or large bowl with hand-mixer) cream butter and sugar until smooth, at least 1 minute
- Beat in cinnamon emulsion and egg
- In a separate bowl, combine baking powder, salt, cinnamon and flour. Add to wet ingredient mixing bowl a little at a time.
- Mix until thoroughly blended.
- Chilling the dough is not necessary! I have tried many different ways of rolling out dough and always come back to the old-fashioned way; a sheet of wax paper that’s been floured.
- I usually divide the dough into 3 chunks and roll out each onto a floured surface and cut. In my experience, this dough works best for cookies at 1/4″ thick. I use my Joseph Joseph rolling pin which does the measuring for me – genius!
- Bake at 350 for 7-8 minutes, depending on size of cookie. I also suggest baking similar-sized cookies together.
- Cool cookies on cookie sheet until firm enough to transfer to cooling rack.
Notes
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How do you make the cinnamon spice emulsion? They sound delicious?.
Hi! The cinnamon emulsion is linked in the post, I use LorAnn’s brand. It is DELISH!